PETER 


E.    F.    BENSON 


By  E.  F.  BENSON 


Peter 

Lovers  and  Friends 

Dodo  Wonders — 

"Queen  Lucia" 

Robin  Linnet 

Across  the  Stream 

Up  and  Down 

An  Autumn  Sowing 

The  Tortoise 

David  Blaize 

David  Blaize  and  the  Blue  Door 

Michael 

The  Oakleyites 

Arundel 

Our  Family  Affairs 


NEW  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


PETER 


BY 


E.   F.   BENSON 

AUTHOR  OF  "lovers  AND  FRIENDS,"  "dODO,"   "DODO  WONDERS — ," 
"queen   LUCIA,"   "DAVID  BLAIZE,"   ETC. 


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NEW  Xajr  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,    1922, 
BY  GEORGE   H.   DORAN   COMPANY 


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PETER.  I 


PRINTED  IN  THE   UNITED  STATES  OF   AMERICA 


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PETER 


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PETER 


CHAPTER  I 

The  two  who  mattered  were  lounging  on  the  cush- 
ioned seat  in  the  low  window,  of  which  the  lower 
panes  had  been  pushed  quite  up  in  order  to  admit 
the  utmost  possible  influx  of  air.  Little  came  in, 
for  the  afternoon  was  sultry  and  windless,  but  every 
now  and  then  some  current  moved  outside,  some 
trickle  of  comparative  coolness  from  the  grass  and 
trees  of  the  Green  Park,  sufficient  to  stir  the  girl's 
hair.  On  this  high  floor  of  the  house  of  flats  Lon- 
don seemed  far  remote ;  the  isolation  as  of  an  aero- 
plane, as  of  a  ship  at  sea,  protected  them  from  exter- 
nal intrusion. 

Inside  the  room  a  party  of  four  were  assembled 
round  the  tea-table;  the  hostess,  mother  of  the  girl 
who  sat  in  the  window-seat,  was  wondering,  without 
impatience,  as  was  becoming  to  so  chinned  and  con- 
tented a  face,  when  Mrs.  Alston  would  cease  gesticu- 
lating with  her  sandwich  and  eat  it,  instead  of  using 
it  as  a  conductor's  baton  to  emphasize  her  points  in 
the  discourse  to  which  nobody  was  listening.  The 
-andwich  had  already  a  large  semicircular  bite  out  of 
it,  which  penetrated  well  past  its  centre,  and  one 
more  application  (if  she  would  only  make  it)  to  that 
capacious  mouth  would  render  it  reasonable  to  sup- 
pose that  she  had  finished  her  tea.     Mrs.  Heaton 

7 


8  PETER 

herself  had  done  so;  so  also  had  the  stout  grey- 
haired  man  with  the  varnished  face,  and  as  for  Mrs. 
Underwood,  she  had  long  ago  drunk  her  cup  of  hot 
water  and  refused  any  further  nourishment.  But 
while  Mrs.  Alston  brandished  her  crescent  of  a  sand- 
wich, and  continued  talking  as  if  somebody  had  con- 
tradicted her,  it  was  impossible  to  suggest  a  move 
to  the  bridge-table  that  stood  ready  with  new  packs 
and  sharpened  pencils  a  couple  of  yards  away.  To 
the  boy  and  girl  in  the  window  that  quartette  of 
persons  seemed  of  supreme  unimportance  both  by 
reason  of  their  age  and  of  the  earnest  futility  of  their 
conversation.  They  talked  eagerly  about  dull  things 
like  politics  and  prices  instead  of  being  flippant,  in 
the  modern  style,  about  interesting  things.  Between 
them  and  the  younger  generation  there  was  the  great 
gulf  digged  by  the  unrelenting  years,  and  set  on  fire 
by  the  war.  It  was  not  flaring  and  exploding  any 
longer,  but  lay  there  in  smouldering  impassable 
clinkers. 

"High  prices  and  high  wages!"  asserted  Mrs.  Al- 
ston. "That's  what  is  going  to  be  the  ruin  of  the 
country.  I've  said  over  and  over  again,  'Why  not 
have  an  Act  of  Parliament  to  halve  the  price  of 
food  and  coal  and  that  sort  of  thing,  and  another 
Act,  unless  you  could  get  it  into  the  same  one,  to 
reduce  wages  by  a  half  also?'  High  prices,  so  every- 
body allows,  are  the  cause  of  high  wages,  and  if 
miners  and  that  sort  of  person  could  buy  their  food 
and  their  clothes  at  half  the  price  they  pay  for  them 
now,  there  would  not  be  the  slightest  difficulty  in 
reducing  wages  by  a  half,  instead  of  multiplying 
them  by  two  every  time  that  they  threaten  to  strike. 
Coal !  The  root  of  all  the  trouble  is  the  price  of  coal. 
Reduce  the  price  of  coal  by  half,  and  instantly  the 


PETER  9 

price  of  transport  and  gas  and  electricity  will  go 
down  in  a  corresponding  manner.  Steel,  too,  and 
linen ;  it  all  depends  on  coal.  The  English  sovereign 
has  to-day  hardly  more  than  half  the  buying  power 
it  used  to  have.  Hardly  more  than  half!  Restore 
it,  then,  by  reducing  the  price  of  everything  else,  in- 
cluding wages.  Including  wages,  mmd !  Otherwise 
you  will  find  yourselves  in  a  fine  mess!" 

She  put  the  rest  of  her  sandwich  into  her  mouth, 
precisely  as  Mrs.  Heaton  had  hoped  and  even  fore- 
seen. That  made  her  mouth  quite  full,  and  for  the 
moment  she  was  as  dumb  as  the  adder.  Her  hostess, 
alert  for  this  psychological  occasion,  gave  a  short, 
judicial  and  fulsome  summing-up,  addressed  to  the 
court  in  general. 

"Well,  dearest  Mary,"  she  said.  "You  have  made 
me  understand  it  all  now,  a  thing  which  I  never  did 
before.  So  well  put,  was  it  not,  Mr.  Steel,  and  I'm 
sure  quite  unanswerable.  We  must  none  of  us  at- 
tempt to  argue  with  dearest  Mary,  because  she  would 
show  us  at  once  how  stupid  it  was  of  us,  and  I,  for 
one,  hate  to  be  made  a  fool  of.  What  a  good  ex- 
planation! Quite  brilliant!  So  now  shall  we  get 
to  our  bridge?  I  expect  we're  all  going  to  the  opera 
to-night,  and  so  we  shall  all  want  to  dress  early. 
Dear  me,  it's  after  half-past  five  already !  Will  no- 
body have  any  more  tea?  Quite  sure?  Shall  we 
cut,  then?  Oh,  there  are  Nellie  and  Peter  in  the 
window.    Wouldn't  you  like  to  cut  in,  too,  dear?" 

"No,  mother,  we  shouldn't!"  said  Nellie. 

The  four  others  swooped  to  the  bridge-table,  with 
the  swift  sure  flight  of  homing  pigeons,  and  hastily 
cut  their  cards  in  order  to  give  no  time  for  repentance 
on  the  part  of  the  two  others. 


10  PETER 

"You  and  I,  Mr.  Steel,"  said  Mrs.  Heaton  hastily. 
"Quite  sure  you  wouldn't  like  to  play,  Peter?" 

"Quite,"  said  Peter  gently.  "I  should  hate  it, 
thanks  awfully." 

"Well,  if  you're  quite  sure  you  won't — my  deal  I 
think,  partner.    Shall  it  be  pennies?" 

Mr.  Steel  had  a  whimsical  idea. 

"Oughtn't  we  to  halve  our  points,  too,  Mary?" 
he  said.    "Like  wages  and  coal?" 

For  a  moment  he  was  sorry  he  had  been  so  rashly 
humorous,  for  Mrs.  Alston  opened  her  mouth  and 
drew  in  her  breath  as  if  to  speak  on  a  public  plat- 
form to  the  largest  imagmable  audience.  Then, 
luckily,  she  found  something  so  remarkable  in  her 
hand  that  her  fury  for  political  elucidation  was 
quenched,  and  she  devoted  the  muscles  of  her  ath- 
letic mind  to  considering  what  she  would  do  if  the 
dealer  was  so  rash  as  to  go  no  trumps.  Thereafter 
the  great  deeps,  dimly  peopled  with  enemies  ready 
to  pounce  out  of  the  subaqueous  shadows  and  double 
you,  completely  submerged  the  four  of  them.  They 
lit  cigarettes  as  in  a  dream,  and  smoked  them  in 
alternate  hells  and  heavens. 

Nellie  looked  at  them  once  or  twice,  as  an 
anaesthetist  might  look  at  his  patient  to  see  whether 
he  was  quite  unconscious.  The  third  glance  was  con- 
vincing. 

"It  must  be  rather  sweet  to  be  middle-aged, 
Peter,"  she  said.  "For  the  next  two  hours  they'll 
think  about  nothing  but  aces  and  trumps!" 

"Sign  of  youth,"  said  Peter. 

"Why?" 

"Because  they're  absorbed,  like  children.  When 
you  were  little,  you  could  only  think  about  one  thing 
at  a  time.    It  might  be  dentist  or  it  might  be  hoops. 


PETER  11 

But  you  and  I  can't  think  about  anything  for  more 
than  five  minutes  together,  or  care  about  anything 
for  more  than  two.  I  suppose  that  when  you're  old 
you  recapture  that  sort  of  youthfulness." 

He  paused  a  moment. 

"Go  on :  tell  me  about  it  all,"  he  said. 

Nellie  did  not  reply  at  once,  but  began  plaiting 
her  fingers  together  with  the  little  finger  on  the  top. 
They  were  slender  and  small  like  her  face,  which 
narrowed  very  rapidly  from  the  ears  downwards  to  a 
pointed  chin.  Loose  yellow  hair,  the  colour  of  honey, 
grew  low  over  her  forehead,  and  just  below  it,  her 
eyebrows,  noticeably  darker  than  her  hair,  made 
high  arches,  giving  her  face  an  expression  of  irony 
and  surprise.  Her  forehead  ran  straight  into  the  line 
of  her  nose,  and  a  short  upper  lip  held  her  mouth  in 
imperfect  control,  for  it  hinted  and  wondered,  and 
was  amused  and  contemptuous  as  its  mood  took  it. 
Now  it  half-smiled;  now  it  was  half  serious,  but 
always  it  only  hinted. 

Peter  apparently  grew  impatient  of  her  silence 
and  her  finger  plaiting. 

"You're  making  them  look  like  bananas  on  a 
street-barrow,"  he  observed. 

Nellie  smoothed  them  out  and  gave  an  apprecia- 
tive sigh. 

"Oh,  I  bought  two  to-day,"  she  said,  "and  ate 
them  in  the  street.  I  had  to  throw  the  skins  away, 
and  then  I  was  afraid  that  somebody  would  slip  on 
them  and  break  his  leg." 

"So  you  picked  them  up  again,"  suggested  Peter. 

"No,  I  didn't.  I  was  only  sorry  for  anybody  who 
might  slip  on  them.  I  couldn't  tell  who  it  was  go- 
ing to  be,  and  probably  I  shouldn't  know  him " 

"Get  on,"  he  said. 


12  PETER 

"Oh,  about  Philip.  Well,  there  it  was.  He  asked 
me,  you  see,  and — of  course,  he's  rather  old,  but  he's 
tremendously  attractive.  And  it's  so  safe  and  pleas- 
ant, and  I  like  being  adored.  After  all,  you  and  I 
have  talked  it  over  often  enough,  and  you  knew  just 
as  well  as  I  did  that  I  was  going  to  accept  him  if  he 
wanted  me." 

Nellie  suddenly  felt  that  she  was  justifying  what 
she  had  done,  and  she  did  not  mean  to  do  that. 
What  she  had  done  justified  itself  by  its  own  in- 
herent good  sense.  She  changed  her  tone,  and  be- 
gan counting  on  those  slim  fingers  which  just  now 
had  introduced  the  extraneous  subject  of  bananas. 

'Teter,  darling,"  she  said.  "If  his  grandfather 
and  an  uncle  and  two  children  of  the  uncle  die, 
there  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  I  shall  be  a  peeress. 
Won't  that  be  fun?  I  feel  that  Uncle  Robert  and 
the  two  children  may  easily  die;  they're  the  sort  of 
people  who  do  die,  but  I  doubt  whether  grandpapa 
ever  will.  He's  like  the  man  with  the  white  beard ; 
do  I  mean  the  Ancient  Mariner  or  the  Ancient  of 
Days,  who  comes  in  Ezekiel?" 

Peter  Mainwaring  rocked  backwards  in  the  win- 
dow-seat with  a  sudden  little  explosion  of  laughter 
that  made  all  the  bridge  players  look  up  as  if  their 
heads  were  tied  to  the  same  tweaked  string.  Then 
they  submerged  again. 

"Not  Ezekiel,  anyhow,"  he  said.  "It's  either  Dan- 
iel or  Coleridge.    I  expect  Coleridge." 

"Yes,  I  mean  Coleridge,"  she  said.  "The  man 
who  stops  the  wedding  guest;  wedding  guest  was 
what  suggested  it.  Grandpapa  always  wanted  Philip 
to  marry  one  of  those  cousins  of  his,  who  look  like 
tables  with  drawers  in  them.    Long  legs  and  bumps 


PETER  13 

on  their  faces  like  the  handles  of  the  drawers.  But 
Philip  wouldn't." 

Peter  ran  his  fingers  along  the  line  of  his  jaw  as  if 
to  be  sure  that  he  had  shaved  that  morning.  His 
face  for  a  man  of  twenty-two  was  ridiculously  smooth 
and  hairless;  it  did  not  much  matter  whether  he 
had  shaved  or  not. 

"Naturally  Philip  wouldn't,"  he  said,  "but  that's 
got  nothing  to  do  with  it.  I  don't  want  to  know 
why  Philip  didn't  do  something,  but  why  you  did. 
I  want  to  see  your  point,  to  do  you  justice.  At  pres- 
ent I  feel  upset  about  it.  You  know  quite  well  that 
there's  only  one  person  you  ought  to  marry." 

"You?"  asked  Nellie,  feeling  that  the  question 
was  quite  unnecessary. 

"How  clever  of  you  to  guess.  You  are  clever 
sometimes.  Oh,  I  know  we've  talked  it  over  enough 
and  seen  how  impossible  it  was,  but  when  it  comes 
to  your  marrying  someone  else " 

He  lit  a  match  and  blew  it  out  again. 

"I  know,"  he  said.  "You've  got  threepence  a 
year,  and  I've  got  twopence,  so  that  in  the  good  old 
times  we  should  have  been  able  to  buy  one  pound  of 
sugar  every  Christmas.  Even  then  we  should  have 
had  nothing  to  eat  with  it.  But  what  you  haven't 
sufficiently  reckoned  with  is  the  fact  that  by  the  tune 
I  am  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  old,  I  shall  get  a  pen- 
sion of  a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  from  the  Foreign 
Office.    But  it's  rather  a  long  time  to  wait." 

Nellie's  eyes  suddenly  grew  fixed  and  rapt. 

"Oh,  Peter,  one  moment!"  she  whispered.  "Look 
quickly  at  mamma's  face.  When  that  holy  expres- 
sion comes  on  it,  it  always  means  that  she  is  intend- 
ing to  declare  no  trumps.  So  when  I'm  playing 
against  her,  if  it's  my  turn  first  I  always  declare  one 


14  PETER 

no  trumps,  and  then  she  has  to  declare  two.    Wait 
one  second,  Peter." 

"No  trumps,"  said  Mrs.  Heaton. 

"There,  I  told  you  so!"  said  Nellie.  "Yes;  it  is 
rather  long  to  wait,  though  I  don't  mean  to  say  that 
a  hundred  and  fifty  isn't  a  very  pleasant  age,  dear. 
The  people  in  Genesis  usually  lived  five  hundred 
years  before  they  married,  and  begat  sons  and  daugh- 
ters. Anyhow,  I  shall  be  a  widow  before  you're  a 
hundred  and  fifty,  and  then  we  shall  be  engaged 
for  three  hundred  and  fifty  years  more,  and  then  we 
shall  totter  to  the  altar.  I  can't  help  talking  drivel; 
it's  all  too  serious  to  take  seriously.  By  the  way,  I 
shall  be  richer  than  you  eventually,  for  when 
mamma  dies  I  shall  have  two  thousand  a  year, 
but  that  won't  be  for  two  thousand  years.  We  have 
been  bom  too  soon,  Peter!" 

Peter  thought  this  not  worth  answering,  but  lift- 
ing one  of  his  knees,  nursed  it  between  his  clasped 
hands  in  silence.  For  her  loose  honey-coloured  hair, 
he  had  a  crisp  coal-blackness;  he  was  tall  for  her 
small  slim  stature,  and  his  lips  were  set  to  definite 
purposes,  whereas  hers  were  malleable  to  adapt 
themselves  to  any  emotion  that  might  waywardly 
blow  on  her.  But  both,  in  compensation  for  differ- 
ences that  were  complementary,  were  triumphantly 
alike  in  the  complete  soullessness  of  their  magnifi- 
cent youth ;  without  violation  of  any  internal  prin- 
ciple they  might,  either  of  them,  shoot  up  singing 
with  the  lark,  or  pad  and  prowl  with  the  ruthless 
hunger  of  the  tiger,  or  burrow  with  the  mole.  They 
were  Sat}^  and  Hamadryad,  some  ancient  and  eter- 
nally young  embodiment  of  life,  with  whim  to  take 
the  place  of  conscience,  and  the  irresponsible  desire 
of  wild  things  to  do  duty  for  duty,  and  impulse  to 


PETER  15 

take  the  place  of  reason.  Each,  too,  had  developed 
to  an  almost  alarming  degree  that  modem  passion 
for  introspection,  which  is  an  end  in  itself,  and  like 
a  barren  tree,  yields  no  fruit  in  the  ways  of  action  or 
renunciation. 

Peter  hugged  his  knee,  and  his  eye  grew  hazy 
and  unfocused  in  meditation. 

"Am  I  in  love  with  you,  do  you  think?"  he  asked 
at  length. 

She  laughed,  quite  disregarding  the  ears  of  the 
bridge  players.  With  Peter  she  was  more  herself 
than  with  anyone  else,  or  even  than  when  alone. 

"Oh,  that's  so  like  you,"  she  said,  "and  so  won- 
derfully like  me.  Certainly  you're  not  in  love  with' 
me;  you're  not  in  love  with  anybody.  You  never 
have  been ;  you  never  will  be.  You're  fonder  of  me 
than  of  anybody  else,  but  that's  a  very  different 
thing." 

"But  how  do  you  know  I'm  not  in  love  with  you?" 
he  asked.  "I  may  be.  You're  not  so  unattractive. 
Why  shouldn't  I  be  in  love  with  you?" 

"It's  obvious  you  aren't.  To  begin  with,  you 
don't  feel  the  smallest  jealousy  of  Philip.  Besides, 
though  you  so  kindly  say  that  I'm  not  so  unattrac- 
tive, you're  the  one  person  who  really  sees  and  notes 
and  mentions  my  imperfections.  You  wouldn't  be 
so  critical  of  me  if  you  were  in  love.  And  then,  as 
I  said,  you're  not  jealous  of  Philip." 

"Good  Lord,  how  could  I  be  jealous  of  Philip?" 
asked  he.  "I  should  have  to  want  to  be  Philip 
before  I  could  be  jealous  of  him,  and  I  wouldn't  be 
Philip,  even  as  things  stand,  for  anything  in  the 
world.  Besides,  you  don't  really  think  him  so  tre- 
mendously attractive  though  you  said  so  just  now. 


16  PETER 

You  said  that  out  of  pure  conventionality,  not  out 
of  conviction." 

Some  momentary  perplexity,  like  a  cloud  on  a 
sunny  windy  day  of  spring  bowled  its  shadow  over 
her  face,  and  creased  a  soft  perpendicular  furrow 
between  her  eyebrows. 

"Peter,  I  think  I  want  to  become  conventional," 
she  said,  "and,  if  you  wish,  I  will  confess  I  was 
practising  for  it  when  I  said  that.  Oh,  my  dear, 
we're  all  human,  cast  in  a  mould  and  put  in  a  cage, 
if  you  don't  mind  mixed  metaphors.  I'm  going  to 
marry  in  the  ordinary  way,  just  because  girls  do 
maiTy.  Mamma  married,  so  did  my  two  grand- 
mammas, and  four  great-grandmammas,  and  eight 
great-great-grandmammas.  In  fact  the  further  you 
go  back,  the  commoner  marriage  seems  to  have  been. 
Some  awful  human  hereditary  spell  has  been  cast 
on  me." 

Peter  leaned  forward,  bright-eyed  and  faun-like. 

"Break  it!"  he  said.  "Exorcise  it!  Spells  don't 
exist  except  for  those  who  allow  themselves  to  be 
bound  by  them.  The  fact  is  we  all  weave  our  own 
spells." 

"But  if  I  did  refuse  now,  what  then?"  said  she. 
"If  you  don't  obey  conventions,  you  must  have  con- 
viction to  take  their  place,  and  I  haven't  got  any. 
Besides,  if  I  don't  marry  I  shall  become  an  old  maid, 
unless  I  die  young.  Oh,  we  are  all  in  a  trap,  we  girls. 
There  are  three  awful  alternatives  to  choose  from, 
and  I  dislike  them  all.  I  don't  want  to  die  young, 
but  if  I  live  to  be  sixty  I've  got  to  be  a  grandmother 
or  a  stringy  old  maid." 

"You've  got  to  be  stringy,  anyhow,  at  sixty,"  said 
Peter. 

"Not  at  all.    Grandmothers  are  usually  plump  and 


PETER  17 

comfortable:  it  is  great  aunts  who  are  stringy.  And 
grandmothers  remain  young,  I  notice,  whereas 
elderly  maiden  ladies  are  only  sprightly.  I  think 
that  it's  because  they  cling  to  youth,  and  there's 
nothing  so  ageing  as  to  cling  to  anything.  If  you 
want  to  retain  anything,  the  best  thing  to  do  is  to 
drop  it,  and  then  it  clings  to  you  instead." 

"That's  rather  ingenious,"  said  Peter.  "You  may 
go  on  about  it  for  a  minute." 

"I  was  going  to.  It's  perfectly  true.  All  the  peo- 
ple who  don't  eat  potatoes  and  sweets  for  fear  of 
getting  fat  become  elephants,  like  mamma,  who  lives 
on  cracknel  biscuits." 

"Does  she?"  said  Peter  with  deep  interest.  "How 
wonderful  of  her." 

"And  all  the  people  who  take  immense  care  of 
themselves  die  at  the  age  of  forty,  because  they  are 
clinging  to  life,  while  those  who  break  every  ordi- 
nance of  health  never  die  at  all.  And  all  the  people 
who  lay  themselves  out  to  be  brilliant  are  crashing 
bores " 

"Oh  yes;  proved,"  said  Peter.  "Let's  go  on  to 
something  else.  What's  to  happen  to  me  when  you 
marry?" 

"Nothing,"  said  NeUie.  "Why  should  it?  You'll 
go  on  being  quite  different  from  anybody  else. 
That's  a  career  in  itself.  You  aren't  human,  any- 
how, however  many  great-grandmammas  you  may 
have  had.  You're  a  wild  thing,  partly  domesticated, 
and  when  you're  tired  of  us  all,  you  go  waving  your 
tail,  and  walking  in  the  wet  woods,  and  telling 
nobody.  Kipling,  you  know.  Then  you  come  back 
rather  sleepy  and  pleased,  and  allow  us  to  put  a  blue 
riband  round  your  neck  and  tickle  you  under  the 
chin,  and  then  you  lie  down  on  a  cushion  in  front  of 


18  PETER 

the  fire  and  purr.  You  don't  purr  at  us,  though,  you 
purr  at  yourself." 

"Lor!"  said  Peter.    "All  that  about  me!" 

Nellie  pushed  back  her  hair  from  her  forehead, 
and  again  plaited  her  fingers  together.  But  this 
time  it  was  no  deliberative,  meditative  process,  but 
a  swift  unconscious  action. 

"Yes,  my  dear,  and  there's  more,  too,"  she  said. 
"It's  my  swan-song,  remember,  for  soon  I  am  going 
to  become  ordinary  and  conventional.  I  used  to  go 
in  the  wet  woods,  too,  you  know,  though  we  never 
met  each  other  there.  But  that  has  been  the  bond 
between  us,  up  till  now  we  have  been  completely 
independent.  You're  going  to  remain  so,  but  not  I. 
Oh,  Peter,  there  was  a  bond !  My  dear,  do  you  think 
that  I'm  rather  mad?  I  have  serious  doubts  about 
it  myself." 

"You  always  were  rather  mad,"  said  he.  "But  go 
on ;  sing  your  swan-song." 

"Then  don't  look  as  if  you  had  taken  a  guinea 
stall  to  hear  me,"  she  said.  "Where  had  I  got  to? 
Oh,  yes.  There  was  a  bond;  you  know  it  yourself. 
I've  never  been  conscious  of  anybody  else  as  I've 
been  conscious  of  you,  nor  have  you  ever  been  con- 
scious of  anyone  else,  as  you've  been  conscious  of 
me.  You've  never  been  in  the  least  in  love  with  me, 
nor  have  I  with  you.  But  we're  the  same  kind  of 
person,  and  one  doesn't  often  see  the  same  kind  of 
person  as  oneself.  Do  you  understand  at  all,  or  am 
I  simply  reading  out  of  my  own  book?" 

He  was  silent  a  moment. 

"Nellie,  would  you  marry  me  if  I  were  rich?" 
he  asked. 

She  made  a  gesture  of  impatience. 


PETER  19 

"How  on  earth  can  I  tell?"  she  said.  "If  you 
were  rich  you  would  be  quite  a  different  person." 

"No,  I  shouldn't " 

"Oh,  Peter,  how  stupid  you  are,"  she  said.  "And 
how  frightfully  Victorian.  That  is  so  shallow. 
Wealth  is  just  as  much  part  of  a  man  or  a  woman 
as  brains  or  beauty.  I  don't  say  that  a  girl  loves  a 
man  for  his  brains,  or  his  money,  or  his  beauty,  but 
they  all  make  a  part  of  him.  Wealth  isn't  an  acci- 
dent; it's  an  attribute.  A  poor  man — I'm  not  talk- 
ing about  you  and  me,  but  only  speaking  in  the  ab- 
stract— may  be  the  same  in  character  and  charm  as 
a  rich  man,  but  what  a  gulf  money  makes  between 
them !  Let  one  man  be  poor,  and  another,  his  abso- 
lute double  in  every  way,  be  rich.  They  cease  to 
be  doubles  at  once." 

"But  if  you  happened  to  love  the  costermon- 
ger "  began  Peter. 

"We  can  leave  that  out,  because  neither  of  us  has 
the  slightest  idea  what  love  means." 

"How  about  the  bond  you  spoke  of,  then?"  asked 
he.    "Hasn't  that  got  anything  to  do  with  it?" 

She  considered  this,  and  then  laid  her  hand  on  his 
arm. 

"If  I  could  choose  now,  this  minute,"  she  said, 
"in  what  relationship  we  should  stand  to  each  other, 
I  would  choose  you  as  my  brother.  I  haven't  got 
one;  I  should  like  to  have  one  tremendously.  And 
yet,  if  I  might  have  it  all  just  the  way  I  liked,  I 
think  I  should  have  you  for  my  sister.  I  don't  so 
much  want  you  to  take  care  of  me  as  I  want  to  take 
care  of  you.    I  want^ " 

"Oh,  come  now,"  said  Peter. 

"It's  true,  though." 

They  had  turned  themselves  about  in  the  window- 


20  PETER 

seat,  so  as  to  secure  a  greater  privacy  for  this  sur- 
prising conversation  from  the  party  at  the  bridge- 
table,  and  were  leaning  out  of  the  window.  A  hun- 
dred feet  below  Piccadilly  roared  and  rattled,  but 
here  the  clatter  of  it  w^as  shorn  of  its  sharp  edges;  it 
was  as  if  a  stir  of  bees  w^as  swarming  in  some  hive 
down  there.  Seen  like  this  from  above,  passengers 
and  vehicles  alike  were  but  crawling  dots  and  blots; 
everything,  from  the  swiftest  motor  down  to  the 
laziest  loiterer,  seemed  to  be  drowsily  and  sound- 
lessly sauntering.  Often  had  Peter  and  Nellie  leaned 
out  here  looking  on  the  traffic  at  the  base  of  the 
cliff,  capturing  for  themselves  a  certain  sense  of  isola- 
tion. Even  leaning  out  they  could  see  nothing  of 
the  precipitous  cliff  side  of  the  house,  for  a  couple 
of  feet  below  the  window  a  stone  cornice  jutted  out 
some  ten  or  twelve  inches,  and  beyond  the  edge  of 
that  the  nearest  visible  objects  below  were  the  tops 
of  motor  buses  and  the  hats  of  the  foot  passengers 
along  the  pavements.  So  still  was  the  air  that  now, 
when  Peter  flicked  the  ash  off  his  cigarette  it  floated 
down,  still  cohering,  till  it  dwindled  into  invisibility. 
He  followed  its  fall  with  that  detached  intentness 
which  the  surface  mind  gives  to  the  ticking  of  a 
clock  or  the  oscillation  of  some  flower-head,  when 
the  whole  psychic  attention  is  focused  elsewhere; 
and  it  seemed  that  Nellie,  as  far  as  her  surface  mind 
went,  was  trotting  in  harness  with  hun,  for  though 
he  had  not  hinted  at  what  occupied  his  eyes,  scarcely 
knowing  it  himself,  she  was  equally  intent. 

"I've  lost  sight  of  it,  Peter,"  she  said,  breaking 
the  silence  of  a  whole  minute. 

"Of  what?"  he  asked. 

"Of  your  cigarette  end.  You  were  watching  it 
too.    Don't  pretend  that  you  weren't." 


PETER  21 

'Well,  if  I  was,  what  then?"  he  asked. 

''Nothing  particular.  I  only  felt  you  were  watch- 
ing it — just  the  bond." 

He  shifted  himself  again.  Hitherto,  as  they 
leaned  out,  his  left  shoulder  touched  hers.  Now  he 
broke  the  contact. 

"I  think  that's  about  the  extent  of  the  bond,"  he 
said.  "And  your  marrying  Philip  shows  precisely 
what  sort  of  value  you  put  on  it.  You've  made  it 
clearer  than  you  know,  for  you've  defined  your  feel- 
ings for  me  as  being  a  desire  to  have  a  brother,  or 
rather  a  sister  to  take  care  of.  I  don't  think  that's 
worth  much.  You  defined  it  further  by  saying  that 
you  couldn't  tell  whether  you  would  marry  me  or 
not  if  I  were  rich,  because  if  I  were  I  should  be  quite 
a  different  person.  If  the  quality  of  the  bond  would 
be  affected  by  that,  it  must  be  of  remarkably  poor 
quality,  and  you're  quite  right  to  break  it.  When 
you  began  talking  about  the  bond  I  thought  you 
might  be  going  to  say  something  interesting,  some- 
thing I  didn't  know,  something  that,  when  you 
stated  it,  I  should  recognize  to  be  true.  If  that's 
all  your  swan  has  got  to  sing  it  might  as  well  have 
been  a  goose." 

Nellie's  eyebrows  elevated  themselves  up  under 
the  loose  yellow  of  her  hair. 

"Peter  dear,  are  you  quarrelling  with  me?"  she 
asked. 

"Yes.  No.  No,  I'm  not  quarrelling.  But  the 
whole  thing  is  such  a  bore.  Where's  my  tail,  and 
where  are  the  wet  woods?" 

She  leaned  her  chin  on  her  hands,  that  lay  along 
the  window  sill. 

"I  wish  you  were  in  love  with  me,"  she  said. 

"I'm    extremely    glad    that    I'm    not,"    said    he. 


22  PETER 

"Otherwise  I  suppose  I  should  want  to  be  Philip, 
or.  as  the  madrigal  says,  some  other  'favoured  swain.' 
But  for  you  to  talk  about  a  bond  between  us  is  the 
absolute  limit.  You  want  everything  your  own  way, 
and  expect  everybody  else  to  immolate  himself, 
thankfully  and  ecstatically,  on  your  beastly  altar." 

''So  do  you,"  munnured  Nellie.    "We  all  do." 

"I?  How  do  you  make  that  out?"  demanded 
Peter. 

"Because  you  object  to  my  marrying  Philip  when 
you  haven't  the  smallest  desire  to  have  me  yourself. 
If  you  knew  that  I  should  say  'Yes,'  supposing  you 
asked  me  to  jilt  Philip  and  marry  you,  you  wouldn't 
ask  me  to.  You  want  me  to  marry  nobody  and  not 
to  marry  me  yourself.  That's  not  good  enough,  you 
know." 

Peter's  mouth  lengthened  itself  into  a  smile,  and 
broadened  into  a  laugh. 

"It's  a  putrid  business,"  he  said.  "Why  shouldn't 
I  take  a  neat  header  from  the  window  and  have  done 
with  it?  I'm  twenty-two,  and  already  I  think  the 
whole  affair  is  rot.  And  if  it  doesn't  amuse  me  now, 
when  is  it  going  to  amuse  me?  It  was  even  more 
amusing  during  the  war,  when  one  came  back  for  a 
fortnight's  leave  before  going  out  to  that  hell  again. 
One  did  grab  at  pleasure  then,  because  in  all  prob- 
ability one  would  be  blown  to  bits  very  soon  after- 
wards. But  now  that  one  is  not  going  to  be  blown 
to  bits  very  soon  afterwards  the  whole  seasoning 
has  gone  out  of  it.  No,  not  quite.  I  want  to  be 
admired.  What  is  love?  Good  Lord,  what  is  love? 
As  I  haven't  the  slightest  idea,  the  best  thing  I  can 
do  is  to  grab  at  pleasures." 

"Or  the  worst,"  suggested  Nellie,  rather  senten- 
tiously. 


PETER  23 

"Now  get  off  the  high  horse/'  said  Peter.  "Or, 
rather,  don't  attempt  to  get  on  it.  You  can't,  any- 
more than  I.     Let's  be  comfortable.     Marry  your 

silly  Philip,  and  I'll— I'll Shall  I  take  to  drink? 

No,  that  wouldn't  do,  for  people  would  say  I  was 
tiying  to  drown  my  despair  at  your  marriage.  I 
haven't  got  feelings  of  that  sort,  and  I  should  hate 
anybody  to  think  that  I  had.  I  loathe  being  pitied, 
anyhow,  and  to  be  pitied  for  something  you  don't 
suffer  from  would  be  intolerable.  And  though  you 
will  remain  just  the  same  to  me  after  you're  mar- 
ried, and  I  shall  certainly  remain  the  same,  our  rela- 
tions will  be  altered." 

Nellie  let  her  eyes  flit  over  him,  never  quite  alight- 
ing. They  skimmed  over  his  crisp  hair,  over  the 
handsome,  smooth,  soulless  profile,  over  his  shoul- 
ders, over  the  knee  he  was  nursing,  over  the  hiatus 
where  white  skin  showed  between  his  rucked-up 
trouser  and  a  drooping  sock.  At  this  moment  she, 
with  the  knowledge  of  the  definite  step  that  she  had 
taken  in  life  by  engaging  herself  to  Philip  Beau- 
mont, felt  far  older  and  more  experienced  than  he. 
She,  anyhow,  could  look  ahead  and  see  a  placid, 
prosperous  life  in  front  of  her,  whereas  Peter,  a  year 
older  than  she,  was  still  as  experimental  as  a  boy. 
All  the  same,  if  he  wanted  anything,  he  had  remark- 
able assiduity  in  the  pursuit  of  it  until  he  caught  it, 
but  nothing  beyond  the  desire  of  the  moment  was 
to  him  worth  bothering  about.  Her  own  prudence, 
her  own  commitment  of  herself  she  knew  to  be  a 
development  of  to-day  and  yesterday,  and  now  it 
seemed  suddenly  to  have  aged  and  consolidated  her. 
But  she  had  no  answer  for  that  voice  crying  in  the 
wilderness  "What  is  love?"  Or  was  there  some  sort 
of  signpost  by  the  wayside  enveloped  in  mist? 


24  PETER 

She  passed  over  that  point. 

"If  it  really  all  seems  to  you  so  putrid,"  she  said, 
"I  don't  know  why  you  don't,  as  you  say,  take  a 
header  into  the  street.  But  you've  no  intention  of 
doing  anything  of  the  sort.  You  would  firmly  resist 
any  attempt  of  mine  to  tip  you  out.  You  like  life 
quite  passably  as  it  is,  you  know,  and  also  you  do 
expect  something  more  from  it.  In  fact,  I  never 
saw  anyone  so  thoroughly  unlikely  to  give  up  living 
or  to  run  any  risk  that  could  reasonably  be  avoided. 
You  say  it's  a  putrid  business  but  really  you  find  it 
a  pleasant  one." 

Peter  sighed. 

"Oh,  yes,  it  will  have  to  do,"  he  said.  "Don't  tip 
me  out,  Nellie.  But  don't,  on  the  other  hand,  think 
that  I  cling  so  desperately  to  life." 

"Not  desperately,  but  instinctively.  It  would  be 
silly  of  anybody  to  throw  up  a  hand  that  may  con- 
tain some  glorious  ace  without  looking  very  care- 
fully through  it.  Everyone  goes  on  playing  and 
clutching  at  the  new  deals  until  he  is  sure  that  there 
isn't  an  ace  in  the  pack  for  him.  Indeed,  it's  when 
you've  found  the  ace  that  you  don't  value  the  rest  of 
the  hand  so  much." 

"I  don't  follow.    Explain,"  said  Peter. 

"Well,  this  kind  of  thing.  For  instance,  if  you 
found  the  ace,  that  is  to  say,  if  you  fell  tremendously 
in  love,  you  might  not  care  about  the  rest  of  the 
hand.  If  the  adorable  was  in  my  bedroom,  two 
windows  off,  and  if  she  was  locked  in  there,  and  if 
the  house  was  on  fire " 

"Any  more  'ifs'?"  asked  Peter. 

"Not  one.  But  supposing  all  these  things,  you 
would  instantly  get  out  on  to  that  cornice,  at  peril 
of  your  life,  and  shuffle  your  way  along  it.     You 


PETER  25 

would  have  to  be  with  her.    You  wouldn't  give  two 
thoughts  as  to  what  might  happen  to  you." 

Peter  thought  this  over. 

"I  should  be  a  consummate  ass,  then,"  he  re- 
marked. "A  fellow  with  a  grain  of  sense  would  go 
down  the  passage  and  bash  the  door  in." 

"But  let's  pretend  that  for  some  reason  you 
couldn't.  If  the  only  way  of  reaching  the  room  was 
along  the  cornice  you  would  go." 

Peter  looked  at  the  ledge. 

"And  if  I  got  there  in  safety,  what  then?"  he 
asked.    "I  couldn't  carry  her  back  along  the  ledge." 

"But  that  wouldn't  prevent  your  going,"  said  she. 
"Whatever  the  risk  to  yourself  was,  and  however 
useless  your  going  was,  you  would  go." 

Peter  was  silent  a  moment,  frowning. 

"I  feel  as  if  all  this  has  happened  before,"  he  said. 
"Do  you  know  that  feeling?  Did  we  ever  sit  here 
before  and  talk  about  just  this?" 

"Not  that  I  remember.  No,  I'm  sure  we  never 
have.  Isn't  it  odd,  that  feeling?  Does  it  seem  to 
you  like  remembrance  of  a  previous  occasion,  or  a 
presentiment  of  a  future  one?" 

"Or  a  slightly  faulty  action  of  the  two  lobes  of 
the  brain?"  said  Peter.  "What  were  we  talking 
about?    Aces?" 

"Yes.  That's  what  I  mean  about  throwing  the 
rest  of  your  hand  away  for  the  sake  of  an  ace." 

Peter  looked  at  his  watch. 

"I  must  go,"  he  said.  "I've  got  to  get  home  to 
dress,  and  rush  back  to  the  Ritz  to  dine  early  before 
the  opera." 

"Oh,  not  just  yet,"  said  she.  "But  I  wish  you 
wouldn't  live  in  South  Kensington.    Why  do  you?" 

Peter  had  a  direct  glance,  a  direct  answer  for  this. 


26  PETER 

"Because  it's  cheaper  living  with  my  father  and 
mother  than  being  on  my  own,"  he  said.  "Also " 

"Well?"  she  asked. 

"I  was  going  to  say  because  they  like  having  me 
witli  them,"  said  he.  "But  I  don't  think  that's  true, 
so  I  didn't  say  it.  I  mean  if  I  had  plenty  of  money 
I  should  take  a  flat  of  my  own,  quite  regardless  of 
whether  they  liked  to  have  me  with  them." 

Nellie  gave  a  little  sigh,  with  a  click  of  impatience 
at  the  end  of  it. 

"There's  an  odd  kind  of  honesty  about  you,"  she 
said.  "You  state  that  sort  of  thing  quite  baldly, 
whereas  I  should  conceal  it.  If  I  had  been  you  I 
should  have  said  that  I  lived  at  home  because  my 
mother  liked  having  me  with  her.  It  wouldn't  have 
been  true,  but  I  should  have  said  it.  Very  likely  by 
saying  it  often  I  should  have  got  to  believe  it." 

"Nobody  else  would  have,"  remarked  Peter. 

"You're  rather  a  brute,  my  dear,"  said  she.  "Go 
away  to  South  Kensington." 

"I'm  going.  But  about  aces  for  one  second  more. 
Have  you  found  your  ace,  Nellie?    Don't  bother  to 


answer." 


"That  is  spoken  like  a  rather  spiteful  woman," 
was  Nellie's  perfectly  justifiable  rejoinder. 

"Maybe  I'm  your  spiteful  sister,"  said  Peter. 

He  walked  gracefully  and  gently  over  to  the  card- 
table. 

"Good-bye,  Mrs.  Heaton,"  he  said.  "Nellie  and 
I  have  had  a  lovely  talk.  I  hope  you've  won  every 
rubber." 

"And  three  aces,  thirty,"  said  Mrs.  Heaton. 
"Good-bye,  dear  Peter.  I  suppose  you'll  be  at  the 
Opera  to-night.    Parsifal.    My  deal?    So  it  is." 


CHAPTER  II 

Peter  descended  from  these  heights  into  the  hot 
dusty  well  of  the  streets,  and  soon  was  on  his  way- 
home  to  dress  and  return  to  the  Ritz,  where  an  early 
dinner  preceded  the  opera  and  any  other  diversions 
that  might  present  themselves.  On  this  sweltering 
June  evening  the  top  of  a  bus  was  a  cooler  progres- 
sion than  a  taxi,  beside  advancing  the  sacred  cause 
of  economy,  which  he  had  just  confessed  was  more 
real  to  him  than  that  of  filial  piety,  and  at  Hyde 
Park  Corner  he  could  catch  a  conveyance  that  would 
deposit  him  not  fifty  yards  from  his  father's  house. 
Coohiess  and  economy  were  suflSciently  strong  of 
themselves  to  make  him  board  it  with  alacrity,  and 
the  detachment  of  a  front  seat  just  suited  the  medi- 
tative mood  which  his  talk  with  Nellie  had  induced. 

Peter  knew  himself  and  her  pretty  well,  and  with 
the  admirable  contributions  she  had  made  to  their 
discussion  there  was  little  to  puzzle  out,  but  much  to 
appraise  and  estimate.  The  notion  that  the  news  of 
her  engagement  had  been  a  blow  of  any  sharp  or 
stunning  quality  could  be  at  once  dismissed,  for 
never  had  he  known  so  well,  as  when  she,  earlier  in 
the  day,  had  communicated  the  news  of  her  engage- 
ment to  him  over  the  telephone  (that  was  like  her), 
how  whole-heartedly  he  was  not  in  love  with  her, 
and  how  unintelligibly  alien  to  him,  as  she  had 
pointed  out,  was  that  emotion.  During  the  last 
year  which  had  witnessed  a  verj'-  decent  flowering  of 
intimacy  between  him  and  her,  there  had  never  been, 

27 


28  PETER 

on  either  side,  the  least  attempt  at  love-making; 
their  relations  had  been  wholly  free  from  sentiment, 
and  not  once  had  either  of  them  tripped  or  stuttered 
over  the  foreign  use  of  love-language.  But  in  ways 
wholly  unsentimental  they  had  certainly  arrived  at 
some  extremely  close  relation  of  intimacy;  there  had 
emphatically  been  a  bond  between  them,  which  to 
his  mind  her  engagement,  if  it  did  not  actually 
loosen  it,  would  shift,  so  to  speak,  on  to  a  new  place ; 
the  harness  must  be  worn  elsewhere.  If  it  was  to 
be  maintained,  he,  at  any  rate,  must  accustom  him- 
self to  its  new  adjustment.  She  had  defined  that 
comradeship  this  afternoon  in  a  way  that  was  rather 
surprising,  for  the  ideal  relation  of  him  to  her,  ap- 
parently, was  that  of  a  brother,  or,  with  greater  pre- 
cision, that  of  a  sister.  That  had  not  struck  him 
before,  but  even  when  first  presented,  it  did  not  in 
the  least  puzzle  him.  Indeed,  it  satisfactorily  ac- 
counted for  that  elimination  of  sex  which  had  always 
marked  their  intimacy.  She  had  not  sought  the 
male  element  in  him,  nor  he  in  her  the  female.  So 
far  he  was  in  complete  agreement  with  the  casual 
conclusion  they  had  jointly  arrived  at,  but  at  that 
point  Peter  detected  the  presence  of  something  that 
seemed  to  show  a  lurking  fallacy  somewhere.  For 
he  had  no  doubt  that  if  he  had  been  rich,  he  would 
before  now  have  proposed  to  her,  and  in  spite  of 
her  provision  that,  since  riches  were  an  attribute  of 
a  man  and  not  an  external  accident,  they  turned 
him  into  a  different  person,  and  that  thus  she  could 
not  tell  whether  she  would  have  accepted  him  or  not, 
he  did  not,  for  himself,  believe  that  she  would  have 
hesitated  in  doing  so.  Finally,  as  material  to,  medi- 
tate upon,  came  her  firm  statement  that  though 
Peter  did  not  want  or  intend  to  marry  her,  he 


PETER  29 

objected  to  anybody  else  doing  so.  With  the  ex- 
treme frankness  with  which  he  habitually  judged 
any  criticism  on  himself,  he  instantly  admitted  that 
there  was  a  great  deal  to  be  said  for  Nellie's  asser- 
tion. When  it  was  stated  brutally  like  that,  he 
recognized  the  justice  of  her  outline.  She  might 
have  made  a  caricature  of  him,  but  her  sketch  con- 
tained salient  features,  the  identity  of  which,  as  he 
contemplated  this  scribble  of  her  inspired  pencil,  he 
could  not  disclaim.  Without  doubt  she  had  caught 
a  likeness;  more  tersely  she  had  "got  him."  Even 
as  he  acknowledged  that,  he  felt  a  resentment  that 
she  had  so  unerringly  comprehended  him,  and  shown 
him  to  himself.  He  enjoyed,  rather  than  otherwise, 
his  own  dissection  of  himself,  without  bias  or  malice, 
but  he  felt  less  sure  that  when  Nellie  was  the  dis- 
sector he  welcomed  so  deft  an  exposure. 

The  retrospect  had  been  sufficiently  absorbing  to 
make  him  unaware  that,  somewhere  in  Knights- 
bridge,  the  top  of  the  bus  had  become  a  strenuous 
goal  for  travellers.  Every  seat  was  occupied,  and 
beside  him  a  young  man  had  planted  himself  in  the 
vacant  place  and  was  talking  to  a  girl  who  had 
plumped  herself  into  a  seat  two  tiers  behind  his. 
Peter  instantly  jumped  up. 

"Let  me  change  places  with  your  young  lady,"  he 
said,  "and  then  you'll  be  together  and  talk  more 
conveniently." 

The  change  was  made  with  a  tribute  of  simpering 
gratitude  on  the  part  of  the  "young  lady,"  and  Peter 
with  laurels  of  popularity  round  his  straw  hat,  took 
the  single  place.  He  knew  perfectly  well  that  he  had 
disturbed  himself  from  no  motive  of  kindliness;  he 
did  not  in  the  least  want  to  please  either  the  man  or 
the  girl.    His  motive  had  been  only  to  appear  pleas- 


30  PETER 

ant,  to  obtain  cheaply  and  fraudulently  the  certi- 
ficate of  being  a  "kind  gentleman."  For  himself,  he 
did  not  care  two  straws  if  the  pair  of  sundered  lovers 
bawled  at  each  other  from  sundered  seats.    .    .    . 

And  then  as  he  took  his  new  place  it  struck  him 
that  the  quality  which  had  prompted  the  transfer- 
ence of  himself  from  one  seat  on  the  top  of  a  bus 
to  another,  was  precisely  the  same  as  had  led  him  to 
resent  Nellie's  dissection  of  him.  In  the  one  case  his 
vanity  was  gratified,  in  the  other  his  vanity  was 
hurt. 

"That's  it,"  he  said  to  himself,  and  mentally  he 
prinked,  like  a  girl,  in  the  glass  that  had  so  uner- 
ringly shown  him  to  himself.  Yet  it  did  not  show 
him  an  aspect  of  himself  that  was  in  any  way  sur- 
prising, either  for  pleasure  or  distaste,  for  he  knew 
well  how  prolific  a  spring  of  native  vanity  was  in 
him.  He  would  always  take  an  infinity  of  trouble 
in  order  to  appear  admirable,  or,  on  the  other  hand, 
to  conceal  what  was  not  so  admirable.  He  would 
always  inconvenience  himself  in  order  to  appear 
kind,  exert  himself  to  appear  amusing,  bore  himself, 
while  preserving  the  brightness  of  an  attentive  and 
interested  eye,  in  order  to  confirm  his  reputation 
for  being  sympathetic.  But  though  vanity  was  the 
root  of  such  efforts,  there  was,  at  any  rate,  no  trace 
of  it  in  his  acknowledgment  of  it.  He  never  deluded 
himself  into  thinking  that  he  suffered  fools  gladly, 
because  he  liked  them,  or  desired  to  secure  for  them 
a  pleasant  half-hour  in  which  they  could  tediously 
inflict  themselves  on  him;  he  suffered  them  with  the 
show  of  gladness  in  order  to  be  thought  kind  and 
agreeable  in  the  abstract,  and  in  the  concrete  to  pick 
up  the  gleanings  of  welcome  and  entertainment 
which,  for  such  as  him,  lie  so  thick  on  the  fields  of 


PETER  31 

human  intercourse,  when  the  great  machines  have 
gone  by.  He  had  no  reason  to  complain  of  these 
gleanings;  there  was  no  one  among  the  youth  of 
London  who  was  more  consistently  in  request,  or 
who  more  merited  his  mild  harvestings.  In  a  rather 
fatigued  and  casual  generation,  tired  with  the  strain 
of  the  last  five  years,  and  now  suddenly  brought  to 
book  after  the  irresponsibility  of  wartime,  when  for 
all  young  men  each  leave  snatched  from  the  scythe 
of  the  French  front  might  easily  be  their  last,  there 
was  a  certain  license  given,  Peter  had  always  been  a 
shining  exception  to  such  slack  social  conduct  of 
life.  He  did  not,  as  he  had  told  Nellie,  expect  much 
from  it,  but  as  long  as  you  were  "on  tap,"  it  was 
undeniably  foolish  not  to  present  yourself  present- 
ably.  Your  quality  was  certainly  enhanced  by  a 
little  foam,  a  little  effervescence.  'That  nice  Mr. 
Peter,  always  so  polite  and  pleasant,"  was  his  re- 
ward ;  and  at  this  moment  Nellie's  divination  of  his 
true  attitude  towards  her  engagement  was  his  pun- 
ishment. 

The  bus  hummed  and  droned  along  the  Brompton 
Road ;  there  was  still  a  solid  stretch  before  it  halted 
just  opposite  the  side  street  which  was  his  goal, 
and  there  was  time  to  consider  her  further  criticism 
that  he  went  off,  waving  his  tail,  into  the  wet  woods 
and  saying  nothing  to  anybody.  What  had  she 
meant  exactly  by  that?  He  had,  at  any  rate,  his 
own  consciousness  that  she  had  hit  on  something 
extremely  real  and  vitally  characteristic  of  him. 
Surely  she  meant  his  aloofness  from  any  intimate 
surrender  of  himself,  the  self-sufficiency  that  neither 
gave  nor  sought  strong  affection.  He  had  acknow- 
ledged the  vanity  as  of  a  be-ribanded  cat,  and  now 
he  added  to  that  his  desire  for  material  comfort,  a 


32  PETER 

quiet,  determined  selfishness,  and  the  reservation 
to  himself  of  solitary  expeditions  in  the  wet  woods 
with  a  waving  tail.  Probably  she  meant  no  more 
than  that,  and  though  Peter  quite  acknowledged  the 
justice  of  these  definitions,  he  again  felt  a  certain 
resentment  against  her  clear-sightedness.  She  had  a 
touch  of  these  defects  and  qualities  herself;  it  was 
that  which  made  the  bond  between  them. 

Peter  let  himself  into  his  father's  house  in  the 
grilling,  dusty  street  nearly  opposite  the  Oratory 
v,'ith  the  anticipation  of  finding  a  speedy  opportunity 
for  a  domestic  exhibition  of  vanity,  for  he  felt  sure 
that  something  ludicrous  or  tiresome  and  uncom- 
fortable would  await  him ;  something  he  would  cer- 
tainly tolerate  with  bland  serenity  and  agreeableness. 
The  house,  the  front  of  which  had  been  baking  in 
the  sun  all  the  afternoon,  was  intolerably  hot  and 
stuffy;  the  door  at  the  head  of  the  kitchen  stairs 
had,  as  generally  happened,  been  left  open,  and  the 
nature  of  the  dinner  which  would  presently  ascend 
could  be  confidently  predicted.  Beyond,  at  the  back 
of  the  hall,  the  door  into  his  father's  studio  was  also 
open,  and  a  languid,  odorous  tide  of  oil-paint  and 
Virginia  tobacco  made  a  peculiarly  deadly  combina- 
tion with  kitchen-smells,  and  indicated  that  Mr, 
Mainwaring  had  been  occupied  with  his  audacious 
labours.  Just  now  he  was  engaged  on  the  perpetra- 
tion of  a  series  of  cartoons  (suitable  or  not  for 
mural  decoration).  The  practical  difficulty,  if  these 
ever  attained  completion,  would  be  the  discovery  of 
the  wall  that  should  be  large  enough  to  hold  them; 
indeed,  the  great  wall  of  China  seemed  the  only 
destination  which,  though  remote,  was  sufficiently 
spacious.  The  subject  of  them  was  the  European 
war  from  a  psychic  no  less  than  from  a  sanguinary 


PETER  33 

point  of  view,  for  the  series  (of  which  the  sketches 
were  complete)  started  with  a  prodigious  cartoon 
which  depicted  Satan  whispering  odious  counsels 
into  the  ear  of  the  Emperor  William  II,  who  wore  a 
smile  of  bland  unperial  ambition  at  the  very  attrac- 
tive prospects  presented  by  the  Father  of  Lies.  In 
the  background  an  army  corps  of  the  hosts  of  Hell 
stretched  from  side  to  side  of  the  picture  like  some 
leering,  malevolent  flower-bed.  Thereafter  the 
series  was  to  traverse  the  annals  of  all  kinds  of 
frightfulness :  Zeppelins  dropped  bombs  on  Sunday- 
schools,  submarine  crews,  agape  with  laughter,  shot 
down  the  survivors  from  torpedoed  liners.  All  these 
existed  only  in  sketches ;  the  first,  however,  as  Peter 
knew,  was  rapidly  approaching  completion  on  the 
monstrous  scale,  and  took  up  the  whole  end  of  the 
studio.  Neither  Peter  nor  his  mother  had  as  yet 
been  permitted  a  glimpse  of  it;  the  full  blast  of  its 
withering  force,  so  Mr.  Mainwaring  had  planned, 
was,  on  completion,  to  smite  and  stun  them. 

He  had  heard  Peter's  entrance  into  the  house,  for 
an  outburst  of  jubilant  yodelling  came  to  the  young 
man's  ears  as  he  put  down  his  hat. 

"Tirra  lirra,  tirra  lirra,"  sang  out  the  boisterous 
voice.    "Is  that  my  Peter?    Ha-de-ah-de-ho!" 

Peter's  eyebrows  went  up,  his  mouth  slackened 
to  a  long  sigh,  and  his  slim  shoulders  shrugged.  But 
his  voice — all  of  him  that  at  present  could  convey 
his  mood  to  his  father — was  brisk  and  cordial. 

"Hallo,  father,"  he  said.    "Do  you  want  me?" 

"Yes,  my  dear;  come  in  a  moment.  I  have  some- 
thing to  show  you." 

Peter  closed  the  door  of  the  kitchen  stairs  and 
went  into  the  studio.  His  father  was  standing  high 
on  a  stepladder  in  front  of  his  canvas,  dashing  the 


34  PETER 

last  opulent  brushful  of  sombre  colour  on  to  the 
thundercloud  which,  portending  war,  formed  so 
effective  a  background  of  Prussian  blue  to  the  Em- 
peror's head.  He  painted  with  swoops  and  dashes; 
such  things  as  ''finish"  were  out  of  place  in  designs 
for  the  wall  of  China.  .  .  .  Even  as  Peter  entered 
he  skipped  down  from  the  steps  of  the  ladder  and  laid 
aside  his  palette  and  brushes. 

"Finito,  e  ben  finito !"  he  cried.  "Congratulate  me, 
my  Peter!  I  made  the  last  stroke  as  you  entered, 
an  added  horror — is  it  not  so? — in  that  cloud.  Ha! 
You  have  not  seen  it  yet;  sit  down  and  drink  it  in 
for  five  minutes.  Does  it  make  you  hot  and  mis- 
erable to  look  at  it?  Yes,  you'll  see  more  of  that 
cloud  and  of  what  it  holds  for  distracted  Europe 
before  I  come  to  the  end  of  my  cartoons.  Bombs 
and  torpedoes  are  in  that  cloud,  my  Peter;  devas- 
tation and  destruction  and  damnation!" 

He  struck  a  splendid  attitude  in  front  of  the  tre- 
mendous canvas,  and  with  a  sweep  of  his  hand 
caused  his  thick  crop  of  long,  grey  hair  to  stand  out 
in  billows  round  his  head.  Physically,  as  regards 
height  and  fineness  of  feature,  Peter  certainly  owed  a 
good  deal  to  his  father,  for  John  Mainwaring's  head 
— with  its  waves  of  hair,  its  high  colour,  its  rich 
exuberance — was  like  some  fine  manuscript  now  en- 
riched with  gilt  and  florid  illuminations,  of  which 
Peter  was,  so  to  speak,  the  neat,  delicate  text  un- 
adorned by  these  flamboyant  additions.  Peter's 
vanity,  doubtless,  came  from  the  same  paternal 
strain,  for  never  was  there  anyone  more  superbly 
conscious  of  his  own  supreme  merits  than  his  father. 
Highly  ornamental,  he  knew  that  his  mission  was 
not  only  to  adorn  the  palace  of  art  with  his  work, 
but  to  enlighten  the  dimness  of  the  world  with  his 


PETER  35 

blazing  presence.  Like  most  men  who  are  possessed 
of  extraordinary  belief  in  themselves,  of  high  colour 
and  exuberant  spirits,  he  was  liable  to  accesses  of 
profound  gloom,  when,  with  magnificent  gestures, 
he  would  strike  his  forehead  and  wail  over  his  own 
wasted  life  and  the  futility  of  human  endeavour. 
These  attacks,  which  were  very  artistic  and  studied 
performances,  chiefly  assailed  him  when  the  Royal 
Academy  had  intimated  that  some  stupendous 
canvas  of  his  awaited  removal  before  varnishing  day. 
Then,  with  bewildering  rapidity,  his  spirits  would 
mount  to  unheard-of  altitudes  again,  and  brush  in 
hand,  he  would  exclaim  that  he  asked  no  more  of  the 
world  than  to  allow  him  to  pursue  his  art  unrecog- 
nized and  unhonoured,  like  Millet  or  Corot.  His 
temperament,  in  fact,  was  that  of  some  boisterous 
spring  day  which,  opening  with  bright  sunshine, 
turns  to  snow  in  the  middle  of  the  afternoon,  and 
draws  to  a  close  in  lambent  serenity;  and  whether 
exalted,  depressed,  or  normal,  he  was  simply,  though 
slangily,  the  prince  of  "bounders." 

He  clapped  his  hand  on  Peter's  shoulder. 

"I  need  not  point  out  to  you  the  merits,  or,  indeed, 
the  defects  of  my  composition,"  he  said,  "for  my 
Peter  inherits  something  of  his  father's  perceptions. 
Look  at  it  then  once  more  and  tell  me  if  my  picture 
recalls  to  you  the  method,  even,  perhaps,  the  in- 
spiration of  any  master  not,  like  me,  unknown  to 
fame.  Who,  my  boy,  if  we  allow  ourselves  for  a 
moment  to  believe  in  psychic  possession,  who,  I  ask 
you — or,  rather,  to  cast  my  sentence  differently — 
to  whom  do  I  owe  the  realization  of  terror,  of 
menace,  of  spiritual  horror,  which,  ever  so  faintly, 
smoulders  in  my  canvas?" 

He  folded  his  arms,  awaiting  a  reply,  and  Peter 


36  PETER 

cudgelled  his  brains  in  order  to  make  his  answer  as 
agreeable  as  possible.  The  name  of  Blake  occurred 
to  him,  but  he  remembered  that  of  late  his  father 
had  been  apt  to  decry  this  artist  for  poverty  of 
design  and  failure  to  render  emotional  vastness. 
Then,  with  great  good  luck,  his  eye  fell  on  some 
photographic  reproductions  from  the  ceiling  of  the 
Sistine  Chapel  that  decorated  the  wall  of  the  studio, 
and  he  felt  he  had  guessed  right. 

"No  one  but  Michael  Angelo,"  he  said.  "That's 
all  the  influence  I  can  see,  father." 

Mr.  Mainwaring  rested  his  chin  on  his  hand  and 
was  gazing  at  his  work  with  frowning,  seer-like 
scrutiny.  It  was  difficult  to  realize  that  it  was  he 
who  had  yodelled  so  jubilantly  just  now. 

"Curious  that  you  should  have  said  that,  Peter," 
he  said  in  a  deep,  dreamy  voice.  "For  days  past, 
as  I  worked,  it  has  seemed  to  me  that  M.  A. — Master 
of  Art,  as  well  as  Michael  Angelo,  note  you — that 
M.A.  was  standing  by  me.  At  times,  indeed,  it 
seemed  that  not  I,  but  another,  controlled  my  brush. 
I  do  not  say  he  approved,  no,  no ;  that  he  was  pleased 
with  me;  but  he  was  there,  my  boy.  So,  if  there  is 
any  merit  in  my  work,  I  beseech  you  to  attribute 
it  not  to  me  but  to  him.  It  was  as  if  I  was  in  a 
trance.    .    .    ." 

He  closed  his  eyes  for  a  moment  and  bowed  his 
head,  and  then  as  if  at  the  last  "Amen"  of  some 
solemn  service  he  came  out  of  the  dim  cathedral  into 
sunlight. 

"Your  mother! "  he  said.  "We  must  not  forget  her 
in  this  great  moment.  Is  she  in?  Tirra  lirra!  Ha- 
de-ah-de-ho!    My  own!" 

He  pranced  to  the  door,  ringing  the  bell,  as  he 
passed,  and  repeated  his  yodelling  cries.    From  up- 


PETER  37 

stairs  a  quiet,  thin  voice  gave  some  flat  echo  of  his 
salutation;  from  below  a  hot  parlourmaid  opened 
the  door  of  the  kitchen  stairs  and  set  free  a  fresh  gale 
of  roastings. 

"Three  glasses,"  he  said  to  the  latter.  'Three 
glasses,  please,  and  the  decanter  of  port.  Maria  mia! 
Come  down,  my  dear,  and  if  you  love  me,  keep  shut 
your  lustrous  eyes  and  take  my  hand,  and  I  will 
guide  you  to  the  place  I  reserve  for  you.  So !  Eyes 
shut  and  no  cheating!" 

Mrs.  Mainwaring,  small  in  stature,  with  a  porce- 
lain neatness  about  her  as  of  a  Dresden  shepherdess, 
sujffered  herself  to  be  led  into  the  studio,  preserving 
the  scrupulous  honesty  of  closed  eyelids.  By  her  side 
her  rococo  husband  looked  more  than  ever  like  some 
preposterous  dancing-master,  and  if  it  was  correct 
to  attribute  to  him  Peter's  inherited  vanity,  it  was 
equally  right  to  derive  from  the  young  man's  mother 
that  finish  and  precision  which  characterized  his 
movements  and  his  manners.  Easily,  too,  though 
with  a  shade  more  subtlety,  a  psychologist  might 
have  conjectured  where  Peter's  habit  of  walking  in 
the  wet  woods  and  telling  nobody  was  derived  from, 
for  it  was  not  hard  to  guess  that  Mrs.  Mainwaring's 
tranquil  self-possession,  her  smiling,  serene  indul- 
gence of  her  husband's  whim,  was  the  result  of  a 
quality  firm  and  deeply  rooted.  Self-possession  had, 
perhaps,  become  a  habit,  for  her  conduct  seemed 
quite  effortless;  but  in  that  tight,  thin-lipped  mouth, 
gently  smiling,  there  was  something  inscrutably  in- 
dependent. She  was  like  that,  secret  and  self-con- 
tained, because  she  chose  to  be  like  that;  her 
serenity,  her  collectedness,  were  the  mask  she  chose 
to  wear.  Thus,  probably,  Peter's  inheritance  from 
her  was  of  more  durable  stuff  than  the  vanity  he 


O/^-C  *^.«  /»i 


38  PETER 

owed  to  his  father,  for  how,  if  his  mother  had  not 
been  somehow  adamantine,  could  she  have  lived 
for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  with  this  flam- 
boyant partner,  and  yet  have  neither  imbibed  one 
bubble  of  his  effervescence  nor  lost  any  grain  of  her 
own  restraint?  Indeed,  she  must  have  been  like  some 
piece  of  quartz  forever  dashed  along  by  the  frothy 
turbulence  of  his  impetuous  flood,  and  yet  all  the 
effect  that  this  buffeting  and  bruising  had  produced 
on  her  had  been  but  to  polish  and  harden  her.  She 
went  precisely  where  the  current  dashed  her,  but 
remained  solid  and  small  and  unpenetrable. 

Such  was  her  relation  to  the  bounding  extrava- 
gance of  her  husband;  he  swept  her  along,  quite 
unresisting,  but  never  parting  from  her  self-con- 
tained integrity,  and  all  his  whirlings  and  waterfalls 
had  never  stripped  one  atom  off  her  nor  rough- 
ened her  surface.  To  him  she  appeared  transpar- 
ently clear,  though,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  not  only 
had  he  never  seen  into  her,  but,  actually,  he  had 
never  seen  her  at  all.  He  bounced  her  about,  de- 
manding now  homage,  when  the  exuberance  of  crea- 
tion was  his,  now  sympathy  when  the  rejection  of 
a  picture  by  the  Royal  Academy  made  him  a  despair- 
ing pessimist;  but  she  never  varied  with  his  feverish 
temperature,  and  on  the  surface,  at  any  rate,  re- 
mained of  an  unchangeable  coolness.  His  trumpets 
never  intoxicated  her  small,  pink  ears;  his  despair 
of  himself  and  the  world  in  general  never  came 
within  measurable  distance  of  sullying  her  serenity, 
any  more  than  a  thunderstorm  disturbs  the  efful- 
gence of  a  half-moon  that  neither  waxes  nor  wanes. 
She  still  continued  calmly  shining  behind  his  clouds, 
as  was  obvious  when  those  clouds  had  discharged 
their  violence.     John  Mainwaring  never  dreamed 


PETER  39 

of  considering  what,  possibly,  might  lie  below  that 
finished  surface;  it  was  enough  for  him  that  she 
should  always  be  ready  to  pay  a  scentless  homage 
to  his  achievements,  or  sit  quietly  like  a  fixed  star 
above  the  clouds  of  despair  that  occasionally  dark- 
ened his  day.  She  was  ''Maria  mia,  my  beloved," 
when  he  was  pleased  with  himself,  and,  w^hen  other- 
wise, it  was  enough  that  she  should  repeat  at  inter- 
vals: "Fancy  their  rejecting  your  picture.  I  am 
sure  there  are  hundreds  in  the  exhibition  not  half 
so  good." 

To  Pet-er  she  was  an  enigma  to  which  he  never 
now  attempted  or  desired  to  find  the  key.  She 
seemed  to  him  quite  impervious  to  external  influ- 
ences behind  that  high  wall  of  her  reserve.  Nothing, 
so  far  as  he  knew,  roused  emotion  in  her;  nothing 
excited,  nothing  depressed  her.  Sometimes,  when  a 
boy,  he  had  gone  to  her  with  a  trouble  to  confide, 
and  she  would  say:  "How  tiresome  for  you,  dear," 
and  perhaps  suggest  some  sensible  course  of  action. 
But  neither  his  troubles  nor  her  own  (if  she  had 
any)  seemed  to  touch  her  emotions;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  if  there  was  something  agreeable  to  com- 
municate, if  his  father  sold  a  picture,  or  Peter  had 
the  announcement  of  promotion  in  the  Foreign 
Office,  her  sympathy  and  pleasure  (if  she  felt  any) 
were  just  as  iced  as  her  condolence  had  been.  The 
event — to  Peter's  apprehension — that  most  had 
power  to  move  her  was  the  fact  that  somebody  had 
left  open  the  door  at  the  top  of  the  kitchen  stairs. 
When  that  was  "quite  shut,"  and  when  all  house- 
hold cares  had  their  sunset  after  dinner,  her  habitual 
mode  of  self-employment  was  to  read  a  page  or  two 
of  a  novel  (returning  it  to  the  library  next  day) 
and  then  to  take  some  sort  of  railway-guide  and 


40  PETER 

scan  the  advertisements  of  hotels  situated  in  agree- 
able places  on  the  south  coast  or  among  the  Derby- 
shire Highlands.  Often  and  often  had  Peter  re- 
turned from  dinner  to  find  his  mother  thus  em- 
ployed. His  father,  when  in  the  throes  of  creation, 
went  early  to  bed  in  order  to  be  fresh  and  spry  for 
the  light  of  the  morning  hours;  but  she  slept  badly, 
and  slept  best  if  she  went  late  to  bed.  There  she 
would  be  then  when  Peter  latch -keyed  'himself  into 
the  house  on  his  return  from  dining  out,  or  even, 
occasionally,  when  he  returned  far  later  from  a 
dance,  with  the  Bradshaw  in  her  hand  open  among 
the  advertisements  of  hotels.  She  would  put  a  paper 
knife  in  the  leaves  to  keep  her  place  while  she  ex- 
changed a  few  words  with  him ;  then,  when  he  went 
to  bed,  she  would  resume  her  reading.  Quite  nat- 
urally and  warrantably  he  had  always  considered 
this  a  "sad  narcotic  exercise"  on  her  part,  producing, 
it  was  to  be  hoped,  the  drowsiness  which  she  was 
wooing.  A  more  promising  device  for  dulling  the 
activity  of  the  brain,  than  reading  about  unknown 
hotels  at  unvisited  places,  could  hardly  be  desired, 
and  so  reasonable  a  process  provoked  no  curiosity  on 
his  part. 

But  the  door  at  the  top  of  the  kitchen  stairs  was 
the  most  active  of  her  interests,  and  took  precedence 
in  her  mind  of  any  mood  of  her  husband's.  So  when 
to-day  he  led  her  with  a  prancing  processional 
movement  to  a  throne  of  Spanish  brocade  at  a  suit- 
able focusing  distance  from  the  finished  cartoon,  she, 
with  nostrils  open  though  with  shut  eyes,  gave  the 
door  to  the  kitchen  stairs  the  first  claim  on  her  atten- 
tion. 

"That  door  has  been  left  open  again,"  she  said. 


PETER  41 

"How  careless  Burrows  is !  Please  shut  it,  my  dear. 
I  will  keep  my  eyes  tightly  shut." 

It  struck  Peter  at  this  moment  that  both  he  and 
his  mother  treated  his  father  as  if  he  had  been  a 
child.  They  both  played  his  games,  treating  them 
with  due  seriousness,  lest  they  should  damp  the 
excited  pleasure  of  the  young.  She  was  playing  now 
without  collusion  for,  led  in  as  she  had  been,  with 
closed  eyes,  she  had  no  idea  that  Peter  was  present. 
Ihen,  faintly  up  the  kitchen  stairs  came  the  jingle 
of  the  'glasses,  and  Burrows  entered  with  the  tray 
that  had  been  ordered,  once  more  leaving  that  fatal 
door  agape.  By  some  exercise  of  domestic  intuition 
Mrs.  Mainwaring  divined  the  sort  of  thing  going  on 
round  her,  and  with  eyes  still  honourably  closed 
said: 

"Be  sure  you  close  the  door  at  the  top  of  the  stairs, 
Burrows,  when  you  go  down  again." 

John  Mainwaring,  with  a  wealth  of  gesticulation 
in  order  to  enjoin  silence  on  Peter,  and  with  much 
stealthiness  of  action,  completed  his  festive  prepara- 
tions. Demanding  from  his  wife  steadiness  of  hand 
and  no  questions,  he  thrust  between  her  fingers  a 
brimming  glass  of  port,  took  one  himself,  and  filled 
a  third  for  Peter,  In  obedience  to  his  pantomime 
Peter  stood  on  one  side  of  his  enthroned  mother  and 
elevated  his  glass. 

"Open  your  dear  blue  eyes,  Maria  mia!"  ex- 
claimed John  Mainwaring,  "and  before  you  say  a 
single  word  drink  to  your  husband's  offering  to 
Art!" 

Mrs.  Mainwaring  opened  her  eyes,  and  found  as 
she  had  already  guessed  from  previous  experience, 
her  brimming  glass. 

"I  couldn't  possibly  drink  all  that,  my  dear,"  she 


42  PETER 

said,  "but  I  will  sip  it  with  pleasure  before  I  say 
anything.  There !  Dear  me,  what  a  fine  great  pic- 
ture! All  success  to  it!  So  that's  what  has  kept 
you  so  busy  all  these  days  when  I  wasn't  allowed  to 
come  into  your  studio.  Oh,  there's  Peter!  Are  you 
going  to  dine  at  home,  dear?  I  thought  you  said 
you  were  going  out." 

"I've  only  come  home  to  dress,"  said  he. 

"I  see.  Now  let  me  look  at  your  father's  picture. 
Why,  there's  the  German  Emperor!  And  what  a 
quantity  of  other  people.  Dear  me!  And  who  is 
that  whispering  to  the  Emperor?  What  a  horrid 
expression  he  has!" 

The  artist  drank  his  glass  of  port  at  a  gulp,  and  at 
another  the  rest  of  hers. 

"Horrid?  I  should  think  it  was.  If  you  had  said 
devilish  you  would  have  been  even  more  on  the 
bull's-eye.  Now  you  shall  be  our  Moliere's  house- 
maid. Speak,  voice  of  the  British  public!  Tell  me 
and  Peter  what  you  see  before  you." 

Mrs.  Mainwaring,  with  the  aid  of  her  glasses,  and 
the  slight  hint  already  given,  was  perfectly  certain 
that  it  must  be  Satan  who  was  whispering  to  the 
Emperor,  and  that  all  those  dreadful  faces  behind 
must  have  something  to  do  with  him.  Then  there 
was  that  huge  dark  cloud  in  the  background. 

"The  Emperor  and  Satan,"  she  said  with  a  sort 
of  placid  excitement,  like  an  adult  trying  to  guess 
a  child's  riddle.  "Now  wait  a  minute,  my  dear. 
Yes,  I'm  sure  that  dreadful  thunder-cloud  behind  is 
the  war,  and  if  the  Emperor  wouldn't  listen  to 
Satan  it  would  go  away.  But  he's  looking  pleased 
and  proud ;  he  is  listening.  I  suspect  that  Satan  is 
telling  him  that  he  will  win  the  war  and  be  Emperor 
of  the  earth,  as  you've  always  said  he  would  have 


PETER  43 

been  if  the  Germans  had  won.  Well,  I  do  think  it's 
clever  of  you  to  have  made  me  think  of  all  that. 
Such  a  few  weeks,  too,  to  paint  such  a  big  picture! 
How  well  you  kept  your  secret!  You  only  told  me 
that  you  were  very  busy,  and  that  I  mustn't  come 
into  your  studio.  I  never  thought  that  when  you 
allowed  me  in  again  I  should  see  anything  so  large 
and  remarkable.     Most  striking!     Isn't  it,  Peter?" 

''Splendid!"  said  Peter.  Then  he  wondered  if  he 
had  put  enough  conviction  into  his  voice  to  satisfy 
the  gourmandise  of  his  father. 

"Quite  splendid ! "  he  said,  rather  louder. 

Then  it  was  Mrs.  Mainwaring's  turn  in  this  game. 

"And  it's  only  the  first  of  a  series,"  said  she.  "You 
must  send  it  to  some  exhibition  at  once,  John,  in 
order  to  make  room  for  the  rest.  So  large,  is  it  not? 
It  fills  up  all  the  end  of  the  studio.  Such  an  im- 
portant picture.  Dear  me,  how  wicked  the  Emperor 
looks!     And  what  will  the  next  picture  be?" 

"War.  Picture  of  war.  Allegorical.  Shells  burst- 
ing into  shapes  of  devilish  malignity." 

He  leaned  on  the  back  of  the  throne,  regarding 
the  picture  intently. 

"It  will  kill  me,  painting  the  rest  of  them,"  he 
said  with  a  fell  intensity.  "I've  got  to  go  through 
the  hell  of  it  all  myself  before  I  can  paint  them." 

The  calm  of  Mrs.  Mainwaring's  voice  was  un- 
touched by  this  gloomy  prospect. 

"No,  dear,  it  won't  kill  you,"  she  said  consolingly. 
"That's  your  artistic  temperament.  You  will  have 
a  good  holiday  afterwards.  You  must  be  sure  to  do 
that.  I  see ;  the  other  pictures  will  all  come  out  of 
that  dreadful  thundercloud.  Such  a  poetical  idea! 
And  I  hope  you'll  have  a  picture  of  Peace  for  the 
last  one.     Everything  quite  serene  again,  and  the 


44.  PETER 

thundercloud  vanished,  and  no  Emperor  at  all, 
unless  you  paint  a  very  little  figure  of  him  in  the 
background  to  show  how  small  he  has  become.  Just 
him  in  the  background,  somewhere  in  Holland." 

John  Mainwaring  left  his  domestic  position,  lean- 
ing on  the  throne,  and  strode  up  and  down  the  studio. 

"Ah,  that  intolerable  happy  ending!"  he  said. 
"That's  the  convention  that  spoils  all  art.  Art's  a 
stern,  bitter  business;  you  mustn't  expect  to  find  a 
bit  of  sugar  at  the  bottom  of  your  cup.  Art,  as  the 
Greeks  said,  is  meant  to  move  pity  and  terror." 

Mrs.  Mainwaring  stepped  from  her  throne. 

"Well,  I  shall  think  of  a  peaceful  picture  for  my- 
self, then,"  she  said,  "and  when  I  have  looked  at 
all  yours  I  shall  imagine  my  own.  After  all,  the  war 
is  over,  and  it's  had  a  happy  ending  for  us,  since 
the  Germans  have  been  beaten  and  Peter  has  come 
back  from  it  all  safe  and  sound.  That's  my  end- 
ing." 

He  projected  his  fine  grey  hair  again  with  a  dex- 
terous sweep  of  the  hand. 

"Well,  well,"  he  said,  as  if  he  was  an  adult  play- 
ing with  a  child,  whereas  certainly  the  relation  was 
the  other  way  about.  "I  will  do  my  best  for  you, 
Maria.  But  I  make  no  promise,  mind.  Remember 
that." 

As  Peter  started  off  again  for  the  various  enter- 
tainments of  the  evening  he  tried  to  imagine  him- 
self in  serious  sympathy  with  either  of  his  parents, 
and  ruinously  failed.  Beginning  with  his  father,  he 
surveyed  with  the  critical  clear-sightedness  of  his 
terribly  sensible  nature  those  hysterical  daubings 
of  paint,  those  mysteries  as  to  what  his  father  was 
engaged  on,  those  prancing  port  wine  ceremonies 
when  his  labour  was  finished,  that  crystal  confidence, 


PETER  45 

never  clouded,  in  the  worth  of  his  fatuous  achieve- 
ments. Long  ago  it  had  soaked  into  his  soul  that 
his  father  was  a  magnificent  buffoon,  who,  decking 
himself  in  the  habiliments  of  Hamlet,  had  no  idea 
that  instead  of  being  engaged  in  heroic  drama,  he 
was  a  figure  in  a  farce  so  outrageous  that  you  could 
not  really  laugh  at  him ;  you  could  only  marvel.  Had 
his  pictures,  every  one  of  them,  been  masterpieces, 
his  own  enthusiasm  over  them  would  have  verged 
on  the  grotesque.  As  it  was  they  were  preposterous 
and  childish  performances,  inspiring  the  observer 
with  pity  and  terror  for  the  perpetrator  rather  than, 
in  the  sense  of  Aristotle,  whom  his  father  so  often 
quoted,  for  the  works  themselves.  How  was  it  pos- 
sible to  feel  in  sympathy  for  one  whose  impenetrable 
egoism  burned  radiantly  unconsumed  like  that? 
Yet,  while  he  rejected  that  possibility,  Peter  found 
himself  somehow  envying  the  temperament  that 
transmuted  life  for  its  owner  into  an  endless  orgy 
and  carouse.  Even  the  deepest  despairs  into  which 
reaction  plunged  his  father  were  psychical  feasts  to 
him,  served  up  with  the  same  sauce  of  transcen- 
dental egoism  as  were  his  raptures.  That  was  like 
some  pungent  essential  oil  of  so  ammoniacal  a 
flavour  that  it  pervaded  its  whole  accessible  atmos- 
phere. No  neutral  quality  on  the  part  of  others,  no 
individual  indifference  was  permitted  to  exist,  or,  if 
it  existed,  it  was  either  wholly  unnoticed  or,  if 
noticed,  sublimely  pitied.  Peter's  father,  so  it  struck 
the  young  man,  galloped  through  life  ''like  a  ramp- 
ing and  a  roaring  lion,"  the  king  of  the  beasts. 

It  was  no  manner  of  good  to  attempt  to  sympa- 
thize with  so  predatory  an  animal,  and  from  the 
thought  of  his  father  Peter  switched  off  to  the 
thought  of  his  mother,  who  was  the  habitual  prey 


46  PETER 

There  he  was  confronted  with  the  mild  enigma,  of 
Vvhich  he  had  not  the  faintest  comprehension,  and 
for  the  hundredth  time,  guessing  out  of  a  dubious, 
incurious  twilight,  he  wondered  if  there  was,  could 
be,  anything  to  comprehend.  He  tried  to  sum  up 
his  knowledge  of  her.  She  ordered  dinner,  she  wore 
day  and  night  some  family  inheritance  of  her  own  of 
splendid  pearls,  she  read  advertisements  in  railway 
guides  of  hotels  on  Cornish  Rivieras  and  Derbyshire 
Switzerlands.  That  she  should  order  dinner  and 
wear  her  own  pearls  was  an  accidental  happening, 
because  she  was  mistress  of  a  house  and  had  some 
pearls,  but  beyond  that  she  receded,  as  far  as  Peter 
was  concerne<:l,  into  a  dreamland  without  logic. 
Indeed,  as  he  devoted  his  mind  to  her  now,  the  most 
illogical  thing  about  her  was  that  for  twenty-three 
years  she  had  contrived  to  live  with  his  father,  and 
had  preserved  a  certain  personality  of  her  own.  It 
seemed  frankly  impossible  that  anyone  who  had 
lived  so  long  with  that  maniacal  egoist  should  not 
have  been  in  any  way  affected  by  him.  But  there 
she  was.  His  father  had  neither  crushed  her  nor 
vitalized  her,  and  whatever  her  real  personality 
might  be,  Peter  felt  sure  that  the  ramping  and  the 
roaring  lion  had  not  invaded  an  atom  of  it.  If  his 
father  sustained  himself  on  the  flamboyance  of  his 
own  existence,  she,  none  the  less,  was  self-sufficient, 
demanding  neither  sympathy  nor  comprehension 
from  others.  The  chasm  that  yawned  between  him- 
self and  his  father  was  a  mere  rabbit-scrape  com- 
pared to  the  abyss  on  the  other  side  of  which  there 
sat  his  mother,  delicate  and  immovable,  covered 
with  hoar  frost  and  decked  with  her  pearls,  and 
reading  her  railway  guide. 

Peter  owed  that  deep-seated  vanity  of  his  to  his 


PETER  47 

father;  to  his  mother  he  owed  that  aloofness  which 
was  no  less  characteristic  of  him.  But  to  himself  he 
seemed  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  either  of  them; 
they  both  appeared  to  him  to  be  distant  and  ancient 
phenomena,  and  he  waved  a  mild  salutation  to  them 
as  acknowledgment  of  the  debt  of  his  own  existence. 
Between  them  they  had  projected  him,  but  his  own 
individuality  swamped  that  as  completely  as  his 
father's  egoism  drowned  all  other  flavours.  Was  it 
always  like  that  nowadays?  Were  all  the  last  gen- 
eration so  far  sundered  from  the  adolescent  present 
as  he  from  his  father  and  mother?  .  .  .  Was  there 
a  new  plan  of  life,  a  new  outlook,  a  new  everything? 


CHAPTER  III 

Peter's  dinner  at  the  Ritz  was  no  dinner-party, 
and  there  were  but  three  young  men,  of  whom  he 
was  one,  and  their  hostess  who  assembled  in  the 
Yawning-place.  People  always  yawned  there;  they 
were  either  waiting  for  somebody  to  come,  or  they 
were  waiting  for  somebody  to  go  away.    .    .    . 

His  hostess  to-night  was  the  perennial  Mrs.  Trent- 
ham,  with  whom  a  party  of  herself  and  three  young 
men  was  a  favourite  form  of  entertainment.  She 
always  professed  a  coquettish  contrition  at  not 
having  been  able  to  get  some  girls  to  meet  her  young 
men — which,  indeed,  she  had  been  quite  wonderfully 
unable  to  do,  since  it  never  occurred  to  her  to  take 
the  preliminary  step  of  asking  them,  and  no  nice 
girl  would  come  to  dine  with  Mrs.  Trentham  with- 
out being  asked.  So  the  girls,  not  being  asked, 
stayed  away,  and  Mrs.  Trentham  apologized. 

She  was  considerably  older  than  the  rest  of  her 
youthful  assemblage;  but  she  looked  almost  as 
young  as  any  of  them,  and  might  charitably  have 
been  supposed  to  be  a  sister,  or  a  wife,  or  something. 
She  had  only  one  real  passion  in  her  excited  life,  and 
that  was  to  dine  as  publicly  as  possible  with  several 
young  men,  sending  her  husband,  to  his  great  con- 
tentment, to  amuse  himself  comfortably  at  his  club. 
There  he  talked  politics  and  played  Bridge,  and  the 
very  number  of  these  public  entertainments  on  the 
part  of  his  wife,  and  the  diversity  of  the  youths 
who  partook  of  them  were  guarantee  against  any 

48 


PETER  49 

breath  of  scandal  sullying  herself  or  anybody  else. 
With  perfect  justice,  nobody  believed  anything 
against  her;  yet  this  delightful  immunity  from 
gossip  rather  annoyed  her.  But,  in  order  to  give 
colour  to  compromise,  she  would  have  been  obliged 
to  descend  to  duets  in  quiet  corners,  which  would 
have  been  no  fun  at  all.  The  loss  of  publicity;  the 
loss,  too,  of  the  pleasing  phenomenon  that  batch 
after  batch  of  young  men,  in  groups  of  two  or  three, 
so  constantly  accompanied  her  to  one  of  the  most 
strategic  tables  at  the  Ritz,  would  not  have  been 
compensated  for  by  the  added  chance  of  scandalous 
talkings.  After  all,  London  was  not  so  violently 
likely  to  care  what  she  did,  especially  since  she  did 
not  care  either,  and  it  was  far  more  agreeable  to 
continue  doing  what  she  liked  rather  than  gain  an 
entirely  spurious  loss  of  reputation  by  less  enjoyable 
methods.  She  had  a  pleasant,  prurient  mind,  and 
her  morals  were  beyond  reproach.  She  called  atten- 
tion to  her  age,  when  she  was  with  the  young,  in  a 
somewhat  excessive  manner,  and  often  alluded  to 
her  beautiful  hair,  which  had  been  grey  before  she 
was  thirty.  "Such  an  old  woman  as  me,"  was  an 
ungrammatical  phrase  which  she  often  affected,  and 
this  was  a  preventive  measure  against  anybody  else 
thinking  of  such  a  thing.  Her  favourite  subject  of 
conversation  was  love. 

Mrs,  Trentham  was  not  really  quite  so  silly  as 
she  sounded,  though  her  immense  sprightliness  often 
seemed  to  plunge  her  into  the  nethermost  depths  of 
fatuousness.  During  the  war  she  had  taken  to 
dressing  in  the  uniform  of  a  nurse,  which  she  dis- 
covered suited  her,  though,  for  fear  of  witnessing 
distressing  sights,  she  kept  well  away  from  hospitals; 
since  then,  having  realized  the  decorative  value  of 


50  PETER 

black  and  white,  she  had  adopted  a  garb  which 
seemed  to  indicate  that  she  was  a  widow,  though  not 
quite  recently  bereaved.  An  occasional  bright  note 
of  colour  in  her  hair  or  round  her  charming  waist 
seemed  to  have  forgotten  about  her  widowhood  and 
was  extremely  becoming.  ...  So  garbed,  so 
minded,  she  awaited  Peter,  who  was  the  last  of  her 
conspicuous  party  of  young  men.  He  was  certainly 
late  for  her  appointed  hour,  but  she  did  not  dislike 
that  as  the  Yawning-place  was  full,  and,  instead  of 
scolding  him,  she  had  her  usual  apologetic  greetings 
volubly  ready. 

"My  dear,  you  will  be  furious  with  me,  I  know," 
she  said,  "but  I  simply  couldn't  get  hold  of  any  girls, 
so  you  and  Charlie  and  Tommy  will  just  have  to  put 
up  with  an  old  woman  until  we  go  to  the  opera,  and 
then  you  will  breathe  loud  sighs  of  relief,  and  I  shall 
see  you  no  more.  Why  are  you  so  late,  Peter? 
Whom  have  you  been  flirting  with?" 

"My  father  and  my  mother,"  said  Peter.  "He  has 
just  finished  the  largest  picture  in  the  world." 

"How  sweet  of  him !  Ah,  they  have  brought  some 
cocktails  at  last." 

She  waited  till  the  servant  was  well  out  of  hear- 
ing. 

"But  how  stupid  the  waiter  is,"  she  said.  "I  am 
sure  I  told  him  to  bring  three  not  four.  Shall  I  taste 
it?    Shall  I  like  it,  do  you  think?" 

It  seemed  not  too  optimistic  to  hope  that  she 
would,  for,  otherwise,  she  would  long  ago  have  ceased 
not  only  tasting  the  fourth  cocktail  which  she  was 
sure  she  had  not  ordered,  but  consuming  it  so  com- 
pletely that  the  strip  of  lemon-peel  overbalanced 
against  the  tip  of  her  pretty  nose. 

"My  dear,  how  strong!"  she  exclaimed.     "I  feel 


PETER  51 

perfectly  tipsy,  and  one  of  you  must  give  me  your 
arm,  as  if  you  were  a  nephew  or  something,  if  I 
stagger  or  reel.  Let  us  go  in  to  dinner  at  once.  I 
promised  Ella  we  would  get  to  Mrs.  Wardour's  box 
by  the  beginning  of  the  opera." 

''Who  is  Mrs.  Wardour?"  asked  Charlie  Harman. 

"Oh,  quite  new,"  said  Mrs.  Trentham.  "Hardly 
anyone  has  seen  her  yet.  Rich,  fabulously  rich.  Her 
husband  was  one  of  the  hugest  profiteers — not  eggs 
at  fourpence,  but  steamers  at  a  quarter  of  a  million. 
He  bought  up  everything  that  floats  and  sold  it  to 
the  Government,  and  most  of  it  got  sunk.  He  died 
a  couple  of  years  ago.    Too  sad." 

"More  about  her,  please,"  said  Peter. 

"I  haven't  seen  her  yet,  my  dear,  but  Ella  Thirl- 
mere  is  being  her  godmother — sponsor,  you  know — 
and  she  asked  me  to  take  people  to  her  box  and  her 
dinners  and  dances.  Her  name's  Lucy:  it  would  be. 
I  shall  begin  by  calling  her  Lucy  almost  immedi- 
ately. There's  no  time  nowadays  to  get  to  know 
people.  You  have  to  pretend  to  know  them  inti- 
mately almost  the  moment  you  set  eyes  on  them." 

"And  pretend  not  to  know  them  afterwards,  if 
necessary,"  said  Peter. 

May  Trentham  gave  a  hasty  glance  round  the 
room  and,  becoming  aware  that  quite  a  suflacient 
number  of  people  were  looking  at  her  and  her  party, 
slapped  the  back  of  Peter's  hand  with  the  tips  of  her 
fingers,  and  gave  a  scream  of  laughter  to  show  what 
a  tremendously  amusing  time  she  was  having. 

"You  naughty  boy!"  she  said.  "Is  he  not  cynical 
about  Lucy?  I  shan't  talk  to  you  any  more. 
Tommy,  my  dear,  tell  me  what  you've  been  doing. 
You  look  flushed.    I  believe  you're  in  love." 

"No.    I've  been  playing  squash,"  said  Tommy. 


52  PETER 

"What  is  squash?  I  believe  it's  one  of  your 
horrid  new  words  and  means  flirting.    Who  is  she?" 

"She  is  Charlie.  At  least,  I  was  playing  squash 
with  Charlie,"  said  Tommy,  with  laborious  pre- 
cision.   "He  didn't  like  it." 

Charlie  fingered  two  little  tails  of  blond  hair  that 
grew  directly  below  his  nostrils  and  formed  his 
moustache.  Otherwise  his  face  was  completely 
feminine — plain  and  pink  and  plump.  He  gesticu- 
lated a  good  deal  with  his  hands,  flapping  and  dab- 
bing with  them. 

"Odious  game,"  he  said,  showing  a  great  many 
teeth  betwen  his  red  lips.  "You  go  on  hitting  a 
ball  against  a  putrid  wall  until  you're  too  tired  to 
hit  it  any  more,  and  then  Tommy  says  'One  love.' 
When  you've  done  that  fifteen  times,  he  says  'Game,' 
and  then  you  begin  again.  I  hoped  I  should  never 
hear  of  it  again." 

"You  shan't,  my  dear;  but  don't  be  such  a  cross- 
patch.  I  know  you're  annoyed  with  me  for  not  get- 
ting you  some  pretty  girl  to  talk  to.  You  must  talk 
to  Peter.  He's  in  disgrace  with  me.  Oh,  Peter,  is  it 
true  about  Nellie  Heaton's  engagement?" 

"Perfectly,"  said  Peter. 

"Then  why  aren't  you  broken-hearted?  I  don't 
believe  any  of  you  young  men  have  got  hearts  now- 
adays." 

"That  accounts  for  their  not  being  broken,"  said 
Peter. 

It  was  time  to  laugh  loudly  again  in  order  to 
remind  the  rest  of  the  diners  what  a  brilliant  time 
she  was  having,  and  May  Trentham  did  this. 

"There  he  goes  again!"  she  said.  "Is  he  not  shock- 
ing? My  dear,  have  you  had  a  dreadful  scene  with 
her?" 


PETER  53 

"No.    I  only  had  tea  with  her." 

"Oh,  don't  pretend  you  weren't  desperately  in  love 
with  her.  But  never  mind.  I  will  find  some  other 
girl  for  you,  who  will  adore  you  so  violently  that  you 
will  lose  your  heart  to  her,  though  you  say  you 
haven't  got  one.  She  shall  be  rich  and  lovely,  and 
we  shall  all  be  frantically  jealous  of  her.  And  you 
shall  both  call  me  Aunt  May,  because  I  have  brought 
you  together." 

"Thank  you.  Aunt  May,"  said  Peter.  "Go  on 
about  her,  please." 

"No,  I've  talked  to  you  long  enough.  Tommy  is 
feeling  left  out.  When  the  opera  is  over,  by  the  way, 
I  want  you  all  to  come  on  to  Ella  Thirlmere's  dance. 
I  promised  to  bring  you  all.  Mrs.  Wardour  is  sure 
to  be  coming,  and  she  will  certainly  have  plenty  of 
motor-cars  to  take  us.  Oh,  there  is  that  marvellous 
Spanish  boxer,  is  it  not,  dining  alone  with  Ella.  How 
gentle  and  kind  he  looks!  Darling  Ella!  I  wonder 
if  she  will  have  six  rounds  with  him  in  the  middle 
of  her  dance.  I  would  certainly  back  her:  look  at 
her  chest.  But  how  daring  of  her  to  dine  with  him 
here!  They  say  he  man'ies  again  after  each  of  his 
fights  and  settles  all  the  money  he  has  won  on  his 
new  wife.  But,  after  all,  I  suppose  it's  just  as  daring 
of  me  to  dine  with  three  such  attractive  young  men 
as  for  her  to  dine  with  just  one  Solomon  like  that!" 

Tommy  puzzled  over  this  for  a  moment.  He  was 
very  good-looking,  but  there  was  no  other  reason  for 
him. 

"Solomon?"  he  asked. 

"Yee,  my  dear;  think  of  his  wives.  I  was  talking 
to  Anthony  Braille  to-day,  who  makes  all  those  won- 
derful tables  about  population,  and  what  encourages 
and  hinders  it.    He  said  the  only  chance  for  England 


54  PETER 

was  to  close  all  the  music-hall  bars  and  introduce 
polygamy.  Every  Englishman,  after  this  dreadful 
^-ar — you  know  I  was  a  nurse  during  the  war — must 
have  fifty  children  a  year  for  two  years — or  did  he 
say  two  children  a  year  for  fifty  years? — in  order  to 
bring  up  the  population  again  to  its  proper  level.  It 
was  all  most  interesting — if  he  only  didn't  stutter  so 
much!" 

"He  seems  to  have  stuttered  out  the  main  facts," 
said  Peter. 

''Oh,  I  couldn't  tell  a  young  man  half  the  things 
he  said  to  me.  We  ought  all  to  be  Patagonians  and 
polygamists.  The  birth-rate  among  Patagonians  is 
colossal.  They  behead  all  women  of  the  age  of 
thirty-five  who  aren't  married,  and  all  bachelors  at 
the  age  of  forty.  It  has  something  to  do  with 
eugenics." 

The  intoxication  of  a  restaurant  now  crowded  with 
people  had  gained  complete  ascendency  over  Peter's 
hostess.  She  never  felt  quiet  and  contented  unless 
she  was  surrounded  by  a  host  of  friends,  acquaint- 
ances, and  people  she  knew  by  sight,  and  had  to 
shout  at  the  top  of  her  voice  in  order  to  be  heard 
above  the  roar  of  other  conversations  and  the  blare 
of  a  band.  It  was  equally  necessary  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  this  tranquil  frame  of  mind  that  several 
young  men,  and,  if  possible,  no  women,  should  be 
with  her,  and  that  she  should  constantly  be  con- 
vulsed by  shrieks  of  laughter,  and  should  have  both 
her  elbows  on  the  table.  A  finer  nuance  in  success 
was  that  she  must  appear  wholly  absorbed  in  the 
brilliance  of  her  own  table,  and  quite  unconscious 
of  the  hubbub  round  her,  though  presently,  when 
she  got  up,  she  would  seem  to  awake  to  the  fact  that 
she  was  in  a  crowded  restaurant,  and  would  blow 


PETER  55 

kisses  all  over  the  room,  and  have  dozens  of  little 
smiles  and  words  for  all  those  whose  position  be- 
tween her  and  the  door  she  had  unerringly  noted. 
Just  a  sentence  or  two  for  each,  reminding  her  "my 
dears"  of  a  meeting  to-morrow,  or  a  meeting  yester- 
day with  a  phrase  of  flattery  and  a  bit  of  whispered 
scandal  and  the  conclusion :  "I  must  fly ;  those  boys 
will  be  so  cross  with  me  if  I  keep  them  waiting. 
Meet  you  at  dearest  Ella's?  Yes?  Lovely!"  .  .  . 
All  this  was  faithfully  performed  on  her  part,  and 
her  face,  with  its  pretty  little  features  all  bunched 
together  in  the  middle  of  it,  like  the  markings  in  a 
pansy,  had  expanded  and  contracted  again  sufficient 
times  before  she  reached  the  door  of  the  restaurant 
to  enable  a  weary  conclave  to  express  itself  as  it 
waited  for  her. 

"Parsifal,  too,"  said  Charlie.  'Thank  God  we've 
missed  the  first  act.  Aged  stunt — flower  maidens 
and  grails.  Can't  we  get  away,  Peter?  Come  home 
with  me.  Say  we're  busy  at  the  F.O..  German  com- 
plications.   Bolshevists  on  the  Rhine." 

Tommy  stood  first  on  one  leg  scratching  a  slim 
calf  with  the  other  instep,  and  then  on  the  other  leg 
scratching  in  a  corresponding  manner. 

"You  simply  can't,"  he  said.  "How  am  I  to  deal 
with  her  and  Lucy?    And  Parsifal?" 

"Polygamy  and  Patagonians,"  said  Peter,  with  a 
vague  remembrance  of  the  preposterous  conversa- 
tion that  had  garlanded  their  dinner.  "Flirt,  Tommy. 
Can  you  flirt?  Hold  hands.  Sigh.  Beam.  Can't 
you  manage  it?" 

"No,"  said  Tommy. 

"Then  Tommy  and  I  will  go  away,"  said  Charlie. 
"After  all,  she  doesn't  want  us,  except  as  a  stage 


56  PETER 

crowd.  She  wants  you  most,  Peter.  I  say,  I  like 
your  studs.    Who?" 

"Nobody.  I  liked  them,  too,  so  I  got  them.  But 
we've  all  got  to  go  on.    After  all,  we've  had  dinner." 

"All  the  more  reason  for  not  going  on,"  said 
Charlie. 

"That's  no  good.  It  doesn't  pay.  Besides,  she's 
awfully  decent " 

"Don't  be  priggish,  Peter.  I  say,  is  Nellie  really 
going  to  marry  Philip  Beaumont?    Do  you  mind?" 

This  atrocious  conversation  was  interrupted  by 
the  sprightly  tripping  advent  of  their  hostess,  who 
put  her  fingers  in  her  ears,  which  she  knew  were 
"shell-like,"  as  she  passed  through  the  direct  blast 
of  the  band,  and  consoled  them  for  her  want  of 
appreciation  of  their  professional  functions  by  dis- 
tributing more  of  her  little  smiles. 

"Now  I  know  you  are  all  going  to  scold  me,"  she 
said,  "because  I've  kept  you  waiting.  But  there 
were  so  many  dears  who  insisted  on  my  having  a 
word  with  them.  They  nearly  tore  my  frock  off. 
Let's  all  cram  into  one  taxi,  and  I  will  sit  bodkin. 
And  after  Ella's  dance  we'll  all  go  on  to  Margie  Clif- 
ford's. She  specially  told  me  to  bring  all  of  you, 
and  scold  you  well  first  for  not  having  talked  to  her 
on  your  way  out.  I  don't  know  what  everybody  will 
think  when  I  appear  at  the  Ritz  and  the  Opera,  and 
two  dances  with  the  same  young  men.  I  shall  have 
to  tell  my  darling  Bob  that  the  Morning  Post  hasn't 
come,  or  he'll  storm  at  me.  What  a  lovely  white 
lie." 

There  flashed  through  Peter's  consciousness  at 
that  moment  an  insane  wonder  as  to  what  would 
happen  if  he  said  calmly  and  clearly  and  genuinely, 
"My  good  woman,  who  cares?    As  for  the  compro- 


PETER  57 

mising  young  men  who  accompany  you,  they  are 
all  dying  to  get  away,  and  only  the  debt  of  the  excel- 
lent dinner  you  gave  us,  of  which  I  reminded  them, 
prevents  us  from  doing  so."  There  was  the  truth 
of  the  matter,  and  it  was  all  rather  mean  and  miser- 
able. Her  guests  were  spending  the  evening  with 
her  and  ministering  to  her  hopeless  delight  in  daring 
situations  simply  because  she  had,  on  her  side, 
administered  the  nosebag.  They  consented,  with  a 
grudging  sense  of  honourable  engagement,  to  plough 
their  way  in  her  wake  merely  because  she  had  fed 
them.  If  she  had  asked  them  severally  or  collec- 
tively to  drop  in  after  dinner,  in  the  way  of  a  friend, 
for  conversation  and  soda  water,  none  of  them  would 
have  dreamed  of  gratifying  her.  And  now,  when 
they  had  fed  deliciously  at  her  expense,  they  would 
all  have  preferred  to  go  back  to  Charlie's  room  in 
Junger  Street  or  to  Tommy's  flat  (Peter's  house 
was  handicapped  by  the  presence  of  parents), 
rather  than  trail  along  to  Parsifal,  and  to  a  dance, 
and  yet  another  dance.  The  dances,  perhaps, 
might  be  amusing,  for  there  would  be  girls,  and 
some  sitting  about  on  stairs,  and  some  sliding 
about  on  slippery  floors,  and  an  irresponsible 
atmosphere,  and  certainly  some  more  champagne. 
You  had  to  get  through  the  night  somehow, 
and  nowadays  you  could  smoke  while  you  were 
dancing,  and  you  needn't  dance  much.  The 
nuisance — rather  a  serious  one — was  that  Mrs. 
Trentham  would  be  there  all  the  time,  screaming  and 
dabbing  at  them  to  show  how  amusing  and  brilliant 
they  all  were,  keeping  them  firmly  planted  round 
her  while  she  told  them  that  they  must  go  away  and 
dance  and  make  themselves  agreeable  to  others 
rather  than  hang  round  an  old  woman  like  her,  and 


58  PETER 

continually  whistling  them  back  if  they  attempted 
to  do  anything  of  the  sort.  She  would  take  up  a 
position  where  she  could  most  advantageously  be 
seen  and  heard,  and  get  them  all  plastered  about 
her,  swiftly  talking  to  each  in  turn,  so  that  he  could 
not  possibly  go  away  as  long  as  she  so  volubly  told 
him  to.  She  had  that  artless  art  to  perfection;  no 
one  had  such  a  gift  for  making  young  men  adhesive 
as  she,  while  all  the  time  she  was  scolding  them  for 
wasting  their  time  on  an  old  woman.  .  There  was 
no  semblance  of  sentiment  in  these  proceedings; 
the  entire  objective  of  the  manoeuvres  was  to  dem- 
onstrate to  the  world  that  these  boys  insisted  on 
crowding  round  her  and  not  leaving  her.  That  was 
her  notion  of  a  successful  evening,  and  since  they 
had  signed  their  bond  by  eating  her  dinner,  she  man- 
aged to  exact  the  full  pound  of  flesh. 

The  curtain  went  down  on  the  first  act  of  Parsifal 
precisely  as  Mrs.  Trentham  led  her  shrill  way  into 
one  of  the  two  boxes  that  bore  the  name  of  Mrs. 
Wardour.  She  tripped  in,  all  feather  fan  and  stock- 
ings, like  some  elegant  exotic  hen,  proudly  conscious 
of  the  brood  of  most  presentable  chicks,  though  not 
of  her  rearing,  which  followed  her.  The  house  at 
that  moment  started  into  light  again,  and  black 
against  the  oblong  of  brightness  were  the  backs  of 
two  female  heads,  both  of  which  turned  round  at  the 
click  of  the  opened  door.  One  of  them  had  a  great 
tiara  on,  sitting  firmly  on  a  desert  of  pale  sandy  hair. 

May  Trentham  advanced  with  both  hands  held 
out. 

"My  dear,  how  late  we  are,"  she  said.  "You  must 
scold  these  boys,  for  they  kept  me  in  such  shrieks 
of  laughter  at  dinner  that  I  had  no  idea  of  the  time. 
Dearest  Ella  has  so  often  talked  to  me  about  you; 


PETER  59 

always  asking:  Haven't  I  met  Mrs.  Wardour  yet? 
Was  it  possible  I  had  not  met  her  great  friend  Lucy 
Wardour?     Charmed!" 

In  the  hard  light  of  the  theatre,  Mrs.  Wardour's 
face  appeared  to  her  to  be  quite  flat;  the  shadows  on 
it  looked  like  dark  smudges  applied  to  the  surface 
with  a  brush,  rather  than  markings  derived  from 
projections  and  depressions.  This  apparition  of  a 
diamond-crowned  oval  of  meaningless  flesh  was 
slightly  embarrassing,  and  she  turned  to  the  second 
occupant  of  the  box.  There,  in  the  younger  face,  she 
saw  what  Lucy  might,  perhaps,  once  have  been  like, 
before  the  years  had  flattened  her  out.  Obviously 
this  was  a  daughter,  though  Ella  Thirlmere  had 
altogether  omitted  to  mention  such  a  thing.  Then, 
with  her  rather  short-sighted  eyes  growing  accus- 
tomed to  the  staring  light.  Mrs.  Trentham  observed 
that  her  first  impression  of  her  hostess's  face  was  an 
illusion,  though  founded  on  fact;  just  as  when  the 
figure  of  a  man  resolves  itself  into  a  hat  and  coat 
hanging  on  the  wall.  There  was  nothing,  in  fact, 
abnormal  about  Mrs.  Wardour's  countenance :  it  was 
just  blankish.  She  had  large  cheeks  of  uniform  sur- 
face, a  nose  of  small  elevation,  no  eyebrows,  and 
eyes  set  in  very  shallow  sockets.  Then  another 
shadow  came  on  to  her  face;  but  this  time,  without 
delay,  May  Trentham  saw  that  it  was  her  mouth 
opening.  When  she  had  opened  it,  she  spoke,  but 
she  did  not  conduct  both  processes  simultaneously. 

"Well,  I'm  pleased  to  see  you,"  she  said;  "but 
there  are  so  many  friends  of  Lady  Thirlmere — Ella, 
I  should  say;  she  told  me  always  to  say  Ella — there 
are  so  many  of  Ella's  friends  visiting  me  to-night 
that  I  don't  quite  seem  to  know  your  name." 

May  Trentham  felt  that  her  brain  was  giving  way. 


60  PETER 

Here  was  a  perfectly  empty  box,  except  for  Mrs. 
Wardour  and  her  daughter,  and  yet  here  was  Mrs. 
Wardour  assuring  her  that  so  many  friends  of  Ella 
were  here.  .  .  .  Where  were  the  friends?  Were 
they  invisible?  Was  the  box  crowded  in  reality  with 
unseen  presences?    ... 

"I'm  Mrs.  Trentham,"  she  said,  clinging  firmly  to 
that  sure  and  certain  fact.  "May  Trentham.  Ella 
told  me  you  would  expect  me." 

Mrs.  Wardour  appeared  to  be  making  an  effort  of 
recollection.  This,  in  a  few  moments,  seemed  suc- 
cessful. 

"That's  correct,"  she  said.  'T  remember;  and  this 
is  my  daughter  Silvia." 

For  a  moment  her  face  slipped  off  its  sheath  of 
meaninglessness,  and  something  homely  and  kindly 
and  simple  gleamed  in  it. 

"I've  got  two  boxes  to-night,  Mrs.  Trentham," 
she  said.  "This  and  the  next,  as  Lady  Thirlmere — 
Ella — so  kindly  sent  along  such  a  quantity  of  her 
friends.  That's  what  it  is;  and  so  Silvia  and  I 
(didn't  we,  Silvia?)  we  left  the  other  box,  seeing 
that  it  was  so  full,  and  came  in  here,  for,  naturally, 
I  wanted  to  put  my  guests  where  they  could  see  the 
play,  and  Silvia  and  I,  we  wanted  to  see,  too.  Mrs. 
Trentham  was  it?  And  I'm  sure  I'm  very  glad  to 
see  you  and  your  young  friends.  I  should  like  them 
all  to  be  introduced  to  me  and  Silvia." 

Charlie  had  hung  up  his  hat  and  coat  during  this 
amazing  conversation,  and  now  came  forward. 

"How-de-do?"  he  said. 

"I  haven't  caught  the  name  yet,"  said  Mrs.  War- 
dour.   The  sheath  had  gone  back  over  her  face  again. 

"This  is  Lord  Charles  Harmer,"  said  Mrs.  Trent- 
ham. 


PETER  61 

"Indeed.  The  son  of  the  Marquis  of  Nairn?" 
asked  Mrs,  Wardour. 

Charlie  opened  his  mouth  very  wide. 

"Brother!"  he  exclaimed,  as  if  he  was  saying 
"Murder!"  on  the  Lyceum  stage. 

Tommy  and  Peter  were  less  important ;  the  latter, 
when  the  introductions  were  over,  found  himself 
sitting  between  Silvia  and  her  mother.  On  the 
further  side  of  Mrs,  Wardour  was  May  Trentham 
between  the  other  two  young  men  and  already 
absorbed  in  identifying  the  occupants  of  boxes  op- 
posite and  blowing  kisses. 

"There!  There's  just  room  for  all  of  us,"  said 
Mrs.  Wardour,  "without  squeezing  each  other.  We 
v/ere  too  squeezed  in  the  other  box,  weren't  we 
Silvia?  There's  six  in  the  other  box,  and  now  we're 
six  here.  Let  me  think;  there's  Lord  Poole  and 
there's  Lady  Poole.  There's  Mrs.  Heaton,  and 
there's  Miss  Heaton,  and  there's  Mr,  Philip  Beau- 
mont, That's  five.  Miss  Heaton  is  engaged  to  Mr. 
Beaumont;  isn't  that  it,  Silvia?  I  want  to  get  it 
clear." 

"Yes,  that's  right,"  said  Peter. 

"Indeed!  Do  you  know  Miss  Heaton?"  asked  Mrs, 
Wardour, 

"Yes,  very  well,"  said  he, 

"That's  what's  so  pleasant,"  said  she,  "Just  to 
sit  here  and  know  everybody.  That's  what  we  want, 
Silvia,  isn't  it?  Just  to  sit  and  know  everybody. 
But  that  only  makes  five.  Who's  the  other  one?  His 
name  began  with  F,  and  he  was  very  fat." 

"Perhaps  that  was  his  name,"  said  Peter.  He  was 
beginning  to  enjoy  himself;  the  whole  thing  was  such 
complete  nonsense.  What  kept  up  the  high  level  of 
it  was  that  Mrs.  Wardour  replied  with  seriousness: 


62  PETER 

"No;  if  his  name  had  been  Fat,  I  should  have 
remembered  it,"  she  said.  "It  wasn't  Mr.  Fat,  nor 
Lord  Fat.  He  seemed  to  know  everybody,  too.  He 
just  sat  there  and  knew  everybody." 

From  Peter's  other  side,  where  Silvia  sat,  there 
came  some  little  tremor  of  a  laugh,  hardly  audible, 
and  turning,  he  saw  that  her  face  dimpled  with 
amusement.  It  was  singularly  sexless;  the  curve  of 
her  jaw,  the  lines  of  her  mouth  were  more  like  a 
boy's  than  a  girl's;  boyish,  too,  was  her  sideways 
cross-legged  attitude.  If  she  was  laughing  at  her 
mother's  remark,  her  amusement  was  clearly  of  the 
most  genial  kindliness. 

Mrs.  Wardour  continued  in  a  perfectly  even  voice 
that  almost  intoned  the  words,  so  void  was  it  of 
inflection. 

"It's  a  pity  your  party  has  missed  so  much  of  the 
opera,"  she  said.  "There's  been  a  lot  of  pretty 
music;  some  of  it  reminded  me  of  being  in  church 
and  hymns.  It'll  seem  quite  strange  going  to  a  dance 
afterwards.  A  lot  of  knights  singing  hymns.  Par- 
sifal, you  know.  Some  say  it's  the  best  opera  Wag- 
ner ever  wrote. 

This  time  Silvia  certainly  laughed,  and  again 
her  laugh  had  not  the  smallest  hint  of  satirical  en- 
joyment ;  she  was  just  amused.  Peter  found  himself, 
though  he  had  scarcely  yet  glanced  at  her,  somehow 
understanding  her.  He  recognized  in  her  amuse- 
ment all  that  he  himself  failed  to  feel  with  regard 
to  his  father's  cartoons  and  his  mother's  readings  in 
Bradshaw.  He  knew  intuitively  that  Silvia  had  got 
hold  of  the  right  way  to  regard  absurdities;  to  see 
comedy  without  contempt.  Whether  she  knew  it  or 
not  (it  was  quite  certain  that  she  did  not),  she  had 
given  him  a  glimpse,  a  hint,  an  enlightenment,  not 


PETER  63 

only  of  what  she  was,  but  of  what  he  was  not.  Look- 
ing at  her  now  directly  for  the  first  time,  his  hand- 
some face  caught  some  reflection  of  her  boyish 
brightness. 

"And  what  do  you  think  of  Parsifal?"  he  asked. 

She  raised  her  eyebrows. 

"How  can  I  tell?"  she  asked.  "I  never  saw  an 
opera  before." 

"I  envy  you,"  said  Peter. 

"Why?  For  not  having  seen  one,  or  because  I 
am  at  last  seeing  one?"  she  asked. 

Peter,  as  usual,  found  himself  wanting  to  make 
a  good  impression.  If  he  had  been  in  a  lift  with  a 
crossing-sweeper  he  would  certainly  have  tried  to 
make  the  crossing-sweeper  like  him,  and  have 
exerted  his  wits  to  hit  upon  something  which  the 
crossing-sweeper  would  think  to  be  admirable,  even 
though  on  arriving  at  the  next  floor  he  would  never 
see  him  again.  He  quickly  decided  now  that  the 
girl  would  not  admire  mere  drivel.  .  .  .  She  hap- 
pened to  want  to  know  what  he  envied  her  for. 

"For  both,"  he  said.  "For  getting  a  new  impres- 
sion. That  includes  both.  You  mustn't  have  seen 
an  opera  before,  and  you  must  be  seeing  one  now." 

She  looked  at  him  with  perfectly  unshadowed 
frankness. 

"I  believe  you  meant  the  first,"  she  said.  "I  be- 
lieve when  you  said  you  envied  me,  that  you  meant 
I  was  lucky  in  not  having  spent  a  quantity  of  boring 
evenings." 

"In  any  case,  I  don't  mean  that  now,"  said  Peter. 

"Ah,  then  you  did.  Why  do  you  mean  it  no 
longer?" 

Peter  found  himself  criticizing  her.  A  conversa- 
tion between  the  acts  of  an  opera  was  not  meant 


64  PETER 

to  degenerate  into  a  catechism.  You  talked  in  order 
to  mask  the  ticking  of  the  minutes.  But  as  he  was 
in  for  a  catechism,  it  was  better  to  be  an  agreeable 
candidate. 

"Why?"  he  asked.  "Because  I  expect  that  you 
never  spend  boring  evenings.  Probably  you  are  not 
a  person  who  is  bored." 

Clearly,  as  he  suspected,  she  was  not  going  to 
commit  herself  to  any  statement  without  considera- 
tion, even  when  so  violently  trivial  a  subject  was 
under  discussion.  Her  eyebrows,  much  darker  than 
the  shade  of  her  hair,  like  Nellie's,  pulled  themselves 
a  little  downwards  and  inwards,  so  that  they  nearly 
met. 

"Oh,  I  could  easily  be  bored,"  she  said.  "A  lot 
of  bored  people  would  infect  me  and  make  me 
bored." 

She  leaned  a  little  forward  towards  him,  again 
with  that  boyish  appeal. 

"Please  don't  be  bored,"  she  said.  "Be  interested 
and  amused.  Make  yourself  into  a  sort  of  disin- 
fectant to  protect  me." 

"Is  there  an  epidemic?"  he  asked. 

"Yes;  the  place  is  reeking  with  it.  My  mother, 
for  instance,  detests  music.  Isn't  it  darling  of 
her?" 

"How  very  odd  of  her,  then "  he  began. 

He  stopped  because,  in  some  emphatic,  intangible 
way,  the  girl  retreated  from  the  platform  of  intimacy 
on  to  which  she  had  stepped.  She  moved  her  chair 
an  inch  or  two  away  from  him,  hitching  it  back  with 
her  foot,  but  that  was  only  a  symbol  of  her  change 
of  attitude.  What  to  Peter  made  the  significance 
of  that  small  steering  was  a  certain  quenching  of 
light  in  her  face,  as  if,  over  it,  she  had  put  up  some 


PETER  65 

mask  of  herself  that  might  easily  have  been  mis- 
taken for  her,  if  the  beholder  had  not,  for  a  glimpse 
or  two,  seen  her  unmasked.  She  shifted  from  the 
personal  ground  on  which,  for  a  minute,  they  had 
met,  and  became  Miss  Silvia  Wardour,  generalizing 
in  small  talk,  in  the  usual  imbecile  and  social  man- 
ner.   She  also  became  much  more  feminine.  .  .  . 

"I  wonder  how  many  people  in  the  house,  who 
have  come  to  hear  Wagner,  really  dislike  it,"  she 
said.  "Probably  w^e  all  of  us  like  some  species  of 
noise,  and  dislike  another  species  of  noise.  If  you 
like  the  Beethoven  noise,  you  probably  dislike  the 
Wagner  noise.  Only  nobody  will  say  so.  They  come 
to  look  at  each  other." 

She  had  carried  back  the  conversation  on  to  the 
personal  platform  again,  as  if  she  was  sorry  to  have 
slipped  off  it  so  suddenly.  But  she  carried  it  on 
to  another  part  of  the  platform.  Quite  clearly  she 
did  not  intend  to  discuss  her  mother's  presence  at 
the  opera. 

'Tell  me,"  she  said.  ''What  sort  of  noise  do  you 
really  like?    This  or  somebody  else's?" 

Peter  wondered  for  the  moment  whether  she  was 
to  prove  to  be  the  earnest  sort  of  girl,  who,  what- 
ever you  said,  insisted  on  discussing  your  random 
statements,  until  you  contradicted  yourself  (which 
usually  happened  quite  soon),  and  then,  vouchsaf- 
ing a  gleam  of  daylight,  found  an  explanation  for 
them  in  order  that  you  might  be  encouraged  to  en- 
tangle yourself  further.  The  earnest  girl,  the  in- 
quisitorial girl;  he  did  not  like  that  type.  .  .  .  They 
gave  you  pencils  and  pieces  of  paper  after  dinner 
and  made  you  write  acrostics;  they  took  letters  out 
of  a  box  and  gave  you  eight  of  them,  from  which  you 
had  to  make  a  word ;  they  divided  the  guests  up  into 


66  PETER 

equal  numbers,  told  them  that  this  was  "Clumps," 
and  that  two  people  were  going  to  leave  the  room 
and  guess  whatever  had  been  thought  of.  These 
were  their  lighter,  intellectual  motions,  and  you 
feverishly  played  "Clumps"  in  order  to  avoid  intoler- 
able abstract  discussions.  Yet  Silvia  had  not  the 
sleuth-hound  expression  that  usually  accompanied 
these  hunters  after  intellect. 

"What  a  searching  question,"  he  said.  "But, 
really,  I'm  omnivorous  about  noises.  I  like  the  noise 
I'm  listening  to.    I  like  it  particularly." 

There  was  not  in  her  face  the  smallest  conscious- 
ness that  he  might  conceivably  be  alluding  to  the 
fact  that  she  was  talking  to  him.  She  let  her  eyes 
sweep  across  the  crowded  theatre. 

"That  noise?"  she  asked.  "All  those  people  talk- 
ing? I  love  it,  too.  Oh,  wouldn't  it  be  interesting 
to  be  somebody  else  for  a  minute,  and  know  what 
he  meant,  what  he  felt  like  when  he  said  anything?" 

Clearly  she  had  used  the  masculine  gender  quite 
unconsciously.  Peter's  answer,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  deliberate. 

"Yes,  I  should  love  to  know  what  she  feels  like, 
even  over  the  most  trivial  speech,"  he  said. 

Silvia  dropped  on  to  this  with  a  precision  that 
only  showed  how  complete  her  own  unconsciousness 
had  been. 

"She?"  she  asked. 

"Certainly  'she,'  "  he  said.  "I  know  well  enough 
the  kind  of  thing  which  men  feel  like." 

She  leaned  forward  again. 

"Oh,  tell  me  about  that,"  she  said. 

Certainly  they  were  together  on  the  personal  plat- 
form again.  Peter  was  quite  at  home  there;  his 
passion   for   making   a   good   impression    on    new 


PETER  67 

acquaintances,  his  rather  uncanny  skill  in  extracting 
intimacy  from  them,  gave  him  a  confident  gait  on 
these  boards.  He  felt  that  this  queer,  attractive  girl 
did  not  in  the  least  wish  to  be  talked  to  in  the  ordi- 
nary, nonsensical  manner.  In  the  gabble  of  the  ball- 
room, and  in  the  more  intimate  duologue  on  the 
stairs  outside  it,  girls,  the  generality  of  them,  liked 
to  be  told  that  men  thought  exclusively  about  them, 
and  spent  their  waking  and  sleeping  moments  in  the 
contemplation  of  their  divinity  and  pricelessness. 
Nellie,  of  course,  was  an  exception,  for  between  them 
there  certainly  was  some  peculiar  bond  of  under- 
standing; but  the  majority  of  girls,  so  ran  his  indo- 
lent and  incurious  creed,  just  wanted  to  be  told  that 
they  were  too  priceless  for  anything,  and  some 
v/anted  to  be  kissed.  It  was  all  nonsense ;  they  knew 
that  as  well  as  he  did;  but  such  was  the  inherited 
instinct,  or,  if  you  wished  to  be  precise,  the  inherited 
instinct  acting  on  the  new  conditions.  But  he  knew 
that  Silvia  was  not  like  that;  there  was  some  eager, 
friendly  quality  about  her.  She  was  not  quite  the 
normal  girl  of  the  ballroom ;  nor  again,  was  she  the 
earnest  girl,  who  wanted  to  explore  your  brains  and 
prove  that  you  hadn't  got  any.  She  seemed  merely 
interested  in  the  topic,  not  because  it  would  lead 
to  a  demonstration  of  her  cleverness. 

''Men?"  he  said.  "What  do  men  feel?  They  are 
as  vain  as  peacocks,  and  they  think  entirely  about 
themselves.  They  think  of  you  as  an  inferior  sex 
designed  to  amuse  them." 

"Ah,  the  darlings!"  said  Silvia,  quite  unexpect- 
edly. 

The  great  pervading  brilliance  of  the  lights  went 
out.  A  row  of  veiled  illuminations  only  remained 
in  front  of  the  red  confectionery  of  the  curtain. 


68  PETER 

against  which  the  conductor's  head  was  silhouetted. 
Silvia,  after  her  surprising  exclamation,  drew  her 
chair  more  into  the  corner  in  order  to  enable  Peter 
to  pull  his  up  to  the  front  of  the  box. 

"Klingsor's  Castle,"  said  Mrs.  Wardour,  with  a 
final  desperate  glance  at  her  programme.  "Who  is 
Klingsor,  Silvia?" 

Peter  wondered  whether  he  could  whisper,  "Who 
is  Silvia?"  but  decided  against  it. 

"A  magician,  darling,"  said  Silvia,  with  the  same 
underlying  bubble  of  amusement. 


CHAPTER  IV 

There  was  a  mad  brutality  of  discordant  noise, 
and  the  risen  curtain  disclosed  an  astronomer  with 
some  sort  of  photogi'aphic  lens  which  he  studied. 
He  roared  and  yelled,  and  soon  a  dishevelled  female, 
in  an  advanced  stage  of  corruption,  shrieked  back 
at  him.  Silvia  found  herself  disliking  the  Wagner 
noise,  and  her  attention  came  closer  home ;  came,  in 
fact,  to  the  quarter-view  of  Peter's  face,  as  he  sat 
low  in  his  chair  in  order  to  give  her  a  clear  view  of 
Klingsor.  She  was  not  sure  that  she  liked  Peter  any 
better  than  the  hurly-burly  that  was  going  on,  and 
though  she  knew  she  had  been  liking  him  during 
the  interval  between  the  acts,  she  now  seriously  set 
herself  to  the  task  of  disliking  him,  and  the  easiest 
method  of  achieving  that  result  was  to  class  him  as 
just  one  of  the  crowd  which  had  come  that  night 
to  occupy,  by  request,  her  mother's  two  boxes.  She 
perfectly  understood  the  situation ;  Lady  Thirlmere, 
the  woman  with  the  pearls  and  the  blue-black  hair, 
had  told  a  lot  of  her  friends  that  they  could  go  to 
see  Parsifal  for  nothing,  and  reap  a  quantity  of  sub- 
sequent benefits  at  the  price  of  knowing  Mrs.  War- 
dour,  of  frequenting  her  house,  and  of  permitting 
her  to  eddy  round  in  the  general  whirlpool.  For 
some  reason,  inscrutable  to  Silvia,  her  mother 
wanted  that;  she  and  her  mother,  in  fact,  were  like 
a  pill,  which  Lady  Thirlmere  had  guaranteed  that 
the  world  should  swallow.  The  pill  was  nobly 
gilded,  and  there  was  any  amount  of  jam  to  assist 

69 


70  PETER 

the  swallowing  of  it.  Without  doubt  Peter  was  one 
of  the  open  mouths. 

Klingsor  and  Kundry  continued  to  rave  at  each 
other,  and  so  far  from  listening,  Silvia  used  that 
external  noise  to  drive  her  own  thought  into  seclu- 
sion ;  much  as  a  dull  sermon,  a  tedious  lecture  makes 
for  introspection  in  the  audience.  And  hardly  had 
slie  classed  Peter  among  the  open  mouths  than  she 
wondered  if  she  had  been  quite  fair  in  doing  so,  for 
the  talk  they  had  had  was  not  of  the  same  timbre  as 
the  conventional  quackings  which  for  the  last  week 
had  made  her  mother's  house  like  a  farmyard,  with 
her,  like  Mrs.  Bond  of  the  nursery  rhyme,  calling 
"Dilly,  dilly  .  .  .  you  shall  be  stuffed,"  and  stuffed 
they  were.  Silvia  could  no  more  enter  with  sym- 
pathy into  her  mother's  aims  than  she  could  enter 
with  sympathy  into  stamp-collecting;  but  out  of 
love  for  the  stamp-collector — the  dear,  weary,  stead- 
fast stamp-collector — she  was  eager  to  feel  the  high- 
est possible  interest  in  the  collection  and  collect  for 
her  with  all  her  might.  But  she  knew  that  she 
despised  the  spirit  of  the  stamps,  which,  in  return 
for  food  and  drink  and  opera-boxes,  were  so  willing 
to  be  collected.  Next  week  there  was  to  be  a  dance 
"for  her,"  in  that  immense  mansion  which  had  been 
re-christened  Wardour  House,  and  pages  of  the 
stamp-book  would  on  that  occasion  be  filled  with 
adhesive  specimens.  ''Everybody,"  so  she  under- 
stood Ella  Thirlmere  to  say,  "would  come,  and  no 
doubt  it  would  be  tremendous  fun.  .  .  ." 

There  were  certainly  some  stamps  here  now.  Lord 
Charles  was  one,  though  why  had  he  been  willing  to 
be  collected?  He  sat  with  his  head  propped  between 
two  long  hands,  and  a  queer  sort  of  nose,  just  pro- 
truding, indicated  by  its  downward  angle  that  he  was 


PETER  71 

profoundly  meditating.  Next  him  was  her  mother, 
whose  pearls  clinked  rhythmically  to  her  breathing, 
and  nearest  to  herself  she  could  see  the  half-averted 
profile  of  the  young  man  whom  she  was  encouraging 
herself  to  dislike.  He  appeared  to  be  looking  at  the 
stage;  certainly  he  was  paying  no  attention  to  her, 
and  she  got  back  to  what  she  actually  thought  of 
him,  instead  of  forcing  herself  into  a  defensive  atti- 
tude against  him.  Somehow  they  seemed  (not  that 
it  mattered)  to  have  been  talking  to  each  other  from 
odd  standpoints.  When,  ridiculously  interested  for 
the  moment,  she  had  asked  him  what  men  "felt," 
he  had  not  given  a  masculine  answer.  He  had 
spoken  to  her  as  if  he  had  been  a  girl;  he  had  said 
that  men  were  as  vain  as  peacocks,  and  thought  of 
women  as  an  inferior  sex,  designed  for  their  amuse- 
ment. Very  likely  that  was  quite  true;  but  now  in 
this  isolation  of  darkness  and  loud  noises,  which 
cut  her  off  from  him  and  everyone  else  in  the  box, 
it  seemed  to  her  to  have  required  a  woman  to  state 
that.  That  was  a  woman's  view  of  a  man;  a  man, 
though  he  shared  it,  could  scarcely  have  said  it. 
Instead,  he  would  have  told  her  that  women  were 
the  angelic  sex,  meant  to  be  adored.  .  .  . 

Some  violent  concussion  had  occurred  on  the 
stage ;  there  was  no  longer  a  gloomy  black  man  with 
a  photographic  lens,  but  some  insane  sort  of  flower- 
bed; and  remembering  her  programme,  she  recol- 
lected that  this  was  the  enchanted  garden.  The 
enchantment  seemed  to  lie  in  a  quantity  of  prodi- 
gious calico  or  cardboard  flowers.  Presently  they 
burst.  If  they  had  not  burst  they  must  have  burst, 
for  mature  females,  singing  loudly,  were  hatched  out 
of  the  centre  of  each.  The  change  had  awakened 
Charlie,  and  he  opened  his  mouth  very  wide. 


72  PETER 

"My  dear,  what  unspeakable  wenches!"  he  said 
loudly  to  Mrs.  Trentham. 

''Silvia,  look  at  the  flower-maidens,"  said  her 
mother.  "They  all  came  out  of  the  flowers.  Was 
not  that  wonderful?  Look  at  the  one  from  the  blue 
convolvulus!    Isn't  she  sweet?" 

Silvia  choked  a  laugh  with  an  audible  effort,  swal- 
lowing it  whole. 

"Yes,  darling,"  she  said.    "Aren't  they  pretty?" 

Peter  turned  to  her  quickly. 

"Oh,  that's  just  how  I  talk  to  my  father!"  he  said, 
and  instantly  looked  back  at  the  stage  again. 

She  reconsidered  her  verdict  of  him  as  merely 
belonging  to  the  open  mouths  which  Lady  Thirl- 
mere  showered  on  her  mother.  They,  at  any  rate, 
did  not  behave  in  that  unwarranted  way.  Her 
neighbour  was  ill-bred,  odious,  familiar,  and  having 
thrown  an  impertinence  like  that  over  his  shoulder, 
he  did  not  even  wait  for  her  rejoinder.  What  it 
would  have  been  she  did  not  quite  know.  But  .  .  . 
was  it  impertinent  of  him  after  all?  Was  it,  per- 
haps, rather  a  pleasant  indication  of  intimacy?  For 
intimacy,  in  the  ordinary  sense,  there  had  not  been 
time  or  opportunity;  but  had  hey  perhaps,  just 
spoken  quite  naturally,  assuming  a  corresponding 
naturalness  on  her  part?  If  so,  she  had  failed 
him.  .  .  . 

Silvia  was  annoyed  with  herself  for  such  a  sug- 
gestion. How  could  she  have  "failed"  a  young  man 
whom  she  had  seen  for  the  first  time  half  an  hour 
ago,  who  was  only  one  specimen  out  of  that  flock  of 
rooks  which  had  alighted  there  in  this  new  field, 
v/here  worms  were  to  be  had  for  the  mere  picking  of 
them  up.  .  .  . 


PETER  73 

There  was  a  long  interval  at  the  end  of  this 
second  act,  and  a  reseating  of  the  occupants  of  the 
two  boxes.  Lord  Poole,  whom  Mrs.  Wardour's  god- 
mother had  chosen  as  a  genial  acquaintance,  came 
in  with  his  great  towering  frame  and  his  immense 
red  face  and  his  unlimited  capacity  for  enjoying  him- 
self. 

"Lucky  dog,  Parsifal,"  he  remarked  to  Silvia,  "to 
have  had  all  those  girls  to  choose  from.  He  should 
have  taken  the  one  that  came  out  of  that  great 
white  lily.  My  word,  she  did  surprise  me  when  she 
came  out  of  that  lily.  I  wish  I  knew  where  I  could 
get  some  of  those  lilies.  Hallo,  Peter!  Get  out 
of  that  chair  like  a  good  boy,  and  let  me  sit  between 
Miss  Silvia  and  her  mother.  Haven't  had  a  word 
with  either  of  them  yet.  Go  and  make  love  to  my 
wife  for  ten  minutes;  you'll  find  her  next  door,  and 
come  back  and  tell  me  how  you've  been  getting  on." 

When  this  great  licensed  victualler  of  London 
appeared  on  the  scene  and  made  some  such  sugges- 
tion, it  was  usual  to  go  and  do  as  he  told  you.  But 
now  Peter  glanced  at  the  girl  as  if  to  ask  whether 
she  wished  him  to  make  way  or  not.  She  gave  him 
no  sign  however,  no  hint  that  he  was  to  stop  where 
he  was,  and  so  the  best  thing,  as  his  cool,  quick  brain 
told  him,  was  to  answer  Lord  Poole  genially  accord- 
ing to  his  folly. 

"You  condone  it,  then,"  he  said. 

"Lord,  yes,  I  condone  anything,"  he  said.  "We 
all  condone  everything  nowadays.  Saves  a  lot  of 
trouble  in  the  courts." 

The  frankness  of  these  odious  sentiments  made 
it  quite  impossible  not  to  treat  them  as  a  farce.  No 
one  in  his  senses  took  Lord  Poole  seriously;  he  was 
so  jolly  and  so  preposterous,  and  so  successfully 


74  PETER 

sought  safety  in  numbers.  He  instantly  spread  him- 
self over  Peter's  chair  and  firmly  put  one  arm  round 
Silvia's  waist  and  the  other  round  her  mother's. 

"Nice  young  fellow  that,"  he  observed  as  Peter 
went  out  of  the  box.  "What  a  pair  he  and  Miss 
Silvia  make,  hey?  He's  black  and  she's  fair,  and 
he's  a  clever  fellow  and  won't  have  a  penny,  and  I 
wish  I  was  his  age.  Do  you  know  his  father?  He's  a 
rum  'un." 

These  remarkable  statements  were  addressed  in 
a  loud,  hoarse  whisper  to  Mrs.  Wardour,  and  were, 
of  course,  perfectly  audible  to  Silvia.  Then  he 
turned  to  the  girl. 

"I've  been  asking  your  mother  to  elope  with  me," 
he  said,  "so  I  hope  you  didn't  overhear.  Now  I'm 
going  to  talk  to  you  and  she  mustn't  listen.  You're 
perfectly  delicious,  my  dear,  you  and  your  golden 
hair,  and  that  little  foot  that's  kicking  me.  Let  it 
go  on  kicking ;  I  like  it.  Wonder  how  Peter's  getting 
on  with  my  missus.  Peep  round  the  corner,  Miss 
Silvia,  and  see  if  she  looks  like  going  off  with  him. 
There  are  several  topping  girls  in  that  box,  but  she's 
the  pick  of  them,  bless  her  heart.  What!  Here's 
your  mother  getting  up  and  leaving  me.  More 
friends  coming  in !  I  never  saw  such  a  lot  of  friends. 
Why,  it's  Ella!  I'm  in  luck  to-night.  And  there's 
May  Trentham  only  one  chair  away.  Look  at  her 
profile  against  the  light.  Did  you  ever  see  anything 
so  perfect?  Looks  rather  like  the  head  on  a  postage- 
stamp,  but  don't  say  I  said  so." 

Lord  Poole  was  now  satisfactorily  engaged  in  his 
usual  evening  occupation  of  getting  as  many  girls 
and  pretty  women  round  him  as  possible,  while  Mrs. 
Trentham  was  performing  a  similar  oflBce  with  re- 
gard to  every  young  man  who  came  into  the  box. 


PETER  75 

Her  pansy  face  was  growing  sillier  than  ever  as  she 
kept  telling  them  all  to  go  and  talk  to  somebody 
else.  The  object  of  these  two  middle-aged  magnets 
was  precisely  similar:  one  wanted  to  attract  to  itself 
all  the  men,  the  other  all  the  women ;  but  there  was 
an  infinite  divergence  in  their  methods.  May  Trent- 
ham,  pretending  to  be  young,  kept  asserting  how 
old  she  was;  Lord  Poole,  pretending  to  be  old,  could 
not  conceal  the  fact  of  how  young  he  was.  He, 
again,  was  not  thinking  one  atom  about  himself,  but 
was  entirely  absorbed  in  his  collection  of  sirens;  she 
was  thinking  exclusively  about  herself,  and  was  only 
anxious  that  every  one  in  the  house  should  turn 
green  with  envy  at  her  galaxy  of  adorers.  .  .  .  Then 
Ella  Thirlmere  and  a  friend  or  two  joined  the  group, 
and  he  returned  blatantly,  fatuously,  delightfully  to 
the  opera. 

"Well,  now,  I  do  feel  like  Parsifal,"  he  said.  "Here 
I  am  in  the  middle  of  such  flower-maidens,  any  of 
whom  could  give  a  couple  of  furlongs  in  a  mile  to 
those  on  the  stage  and  come  romping  home  in  a 
canter.  Look  at  Ella  now:  there's -a  picture  for  you! 
Why,  my  gracious,  here's  Winifred,  too!  Come  and 
tell  us  all  about  it,  Winifred ;  how  many  hearts,  not 
reckoning  mine,  have  you  broken  to-night?  Look 
at  that  hair  of  hers!  Did  anybody  ever  see  hair  like 
that?  I  never  did,  and  I've  seen  a  lot  in  my  time. 
May  Trentham,  too!  Do  you  wonder  that  all  the 
young  men  go  swarming  round  her?  I'm  sure  I 
don't,  and  I'd  join  the  swarm  myself  if  I  wasn't  so 
blissfully  situated  just  where  I  am.  Haven't  enjoyed 
an  evening  so  much  for  years.  Wish  this  interval 
would  last  till  Doomsday,  and  then  we'd  all  go  up  to 
heaven  together !    St.  Peter  would  let  me  in  without 


76  PETER 

a  question  when  he  saw  whom  I'd  brought  along  with 


me." 


Among  the  people  who  had  drifted  in  at  the  end 
of  the  act  was  Philip  Beaumont,  whom  Mrs.  Trent- 
ham  had  instantly  rendered  adhesive  by  her  voluble 
commands  to  go  back  to  Nellie  Heaton  at  once.  Nel- 
lie, however,  had  very  designedly  sent  him  here,  for 
she  had  become  aware  by  a  glimpse,  a  sound  (an 
instinct,  perhaps  even  more)  that  Peter  was  in  the 
box  next  door,  and  her  dispatch  of  her  lover  there 
would  certainly  signify  to  Peter  that  she  wished  him 
to  take  the  chair  now  vacant  by  her  and  resume  the 
talk  that  had  taken  place  in  the  window  that  after- 
noon. Somehow  that  talk  had  made  for  itself  an 
anchorage  uncomfortable  to  her  consciousness;  it 
had  been  like  a  fishbone  in  her  throat.  She  had 
taken  gulps  of  her  fiance,  so  to  speak,  in  order  to  dis- 
lodge it;  but  she  had  not  succeeded  in  swallowing  it. 
She  had  tried  to  divert  her  attention  from  it;  had 
pounced  with  fixed  claws  on  the  opera  in  front  of 
her;  had  jotted  down  in  her  memory,  with  the  fell 
example  of  Lady  Poole  as  an  object-lesson,  a  quan- 
tity of  ways  of  behaviour  and  of  the  presentation  of 
yourself  to  others  which  were  undesirable  when  you 
were  fifty  or  seventy  or  whatever  Lady  Poole  hap- 
pened to  be.  You  must  be  quiet  and  calm  when  you 
had  tottered  up  to  those  hoary  altitudes;  you  must 
leave  your  hair  to  turn  any  colour  it  chose.  ... 
You  mustn't  wriggle  and  snort,  for  whereas  wrig- 
gling in  the  young  might  exhibit  (quite  advantage- 
ously) a  graceful  litheness,  it  suggested  in  the  old 
that  a  galvanic  battery  had  been  unexpectedly  ap- 
plied to  the  knees  and  the  elbows  and  the  middle 
part  of  the  person.  But  there  was  something  remote 
about  these  gleanings    of   knowledge;  they  might 


PETER  77 

prove  to  be  nutritious  (and  possibly  palatable)  if 
preserved  and  remembered  for  thirty  or  forty  years; 
at  the  present  moment  they  were  not  of  sufficiently 
arresting  a  quality  to  divert  her  mind  from  this  fish- 
bone of  her  interview  with  Peter.  .  .  .  There  had 
been  a  harshness,  a  crudity  in  it;  there  had  been,  to 
her  mind,  a  certain  hostility  in  it;  there  had  been 
also  a  certain  hunger  in  it,  an  emptiness  that  ached. 
He  had  clearly  pronounced  that  their  relationship — 
the  bond,  in  fact,  of  which  she  had  spoken — must  be 
changed  by  her  engagement,  and,  though  she  would 
have  combated  that  with  wit  and  good  sense,  some 
internal  fibre  of  her  throbbed,  vibrated  to  the  truth 
of  it.  She  wanted  to  convince  Peter  (and  even  more 
to  convince  herself)  that  the  old  bond,  the  old  rela- 
tionship, still  flowered  and  had  lost  no  petal  of  its 
fragrance. 

She  had  not  to  wait  long  for  his  entry;  Philip 
had  barely  left  the  box  before  he  appeared  in  the 
doorway,  and  she  applauded  his  quickness  in  answer- 
ing the  signal  she  had  waved  to  him  in  the  ejection 
of  the  other.  He  was  silhouetted  there  for  a  moment 
as  he  spoke  to  someone  in  the  corridor  outside,  cool 
and  crisp  and  complete.  Peter  was  always  like  that; 
nature  had  applied  to  him  some  extra  polish,  some 
exquisite  finish,  which  detached  him  from  all  others 
in  the  moist  or  dusty  crowd.  Adorable  though  that 
was,  the  thought  came  to  the  girl  that,  above  all  else, 
she  wanted  to  disturb  and  disarrange  that.  Peter 
excited  and  dishevelled.  Peter  enthusiastic.  Peter 
undetached  and  clinging  was  perhaps  the  real  Peter, 
...  A  clamorous,  turbulent  Peter.  .  ,  . 

He  looked  round  as  he  entered ;  he  clearly  saw  her, 
and  as  clearly  disregarded  the  obvious  movement 
cf  ber  hand  to  the  vacant  seat  which  Philip  had  just 


78  rF/IKR 

(juitli'il.  'riutiii!;h  lliat  rejection — that  "cut"  you 
niip;ht  call  it,  considering  their  friendshij) — was  in  no 
way  pn'iiuMlilaleii,  it  was,  when  iio  saw  Nellie  bock- 
oning  as  with  {jroprietorsliip.  or  so  it  struck  him, 
(luito  (l(>lil)(M'al(\  11(^  lind  .uivcMi  no  Ihon.niit  to  it 
before,  and  apparent ly  gave  no  furtiuM'  thouglit  now, 
for  1h»  insl.'indy  placed  hinis(^lf  n(>xt  Lady  rool(\  be- 
side whom  thert^  was  jmolher  (Mnpty  sivii.  There 
was  a  gr(\at  gretMi  f(\a(h(M-,  nodding  a  welcome  frcnn 
hvr  vioIiMit  hair,  wl\ii'l»  m.alched  her  green  shoes 
and  lh(^  l.arj*(^  slabs  of  false  emerald  with  which  her 
dress  was  h.a/a.rdously  lu^ld  togeth(M\  She  was  quite 
as  absurd  as  her  husband,  and  had  a  witty  poison 
under  her  tongue,  whicli  she  sj)rayed  profusely  over 
most  subjects  of  discussion.  Hut  her  poison  hurt 
nobody,  since  nobody  ever  believed  a  word  slie  said. 
Slu»  was.  in  f.act,  as  harmless  as  a  serpent,  and  cer- 
tainly not  as  wise  as  a  dove. 

'riie  serj)ent  aspect  showed  its  innocuous  fangs. 

"Monster,"  she  said  to  Peter.  "Sit  down  and  tell 
me  at  once  what's  going  on  next  door.  Wliom's  my 
ChristopluT  ilirting  with?" 

"lOverybody,"  sjiid  Peter.  "He  sent  me  away  to 
Dirt  witii  you.  l^et's  begin.  Siudl  I  begin?  Tell 
u\c  why  you  and  he  should  always  remain  young 
when  all  tiie  rest  of  us  are  as  old  as  tlu^  hills." 

The  wisdom  of  the  mature  dove  peej)eii  out  for  a 
moment,  but  w.-is  driven  back  by  a  hiss  of  the  ser- 
pent, as  a  loud  squeal  of  laughter  sounded  from  the 
next.  box. 

"That's  May  Trentham,"  said  l^ady  Poole  uner- 
ringly. "My  dear,  what  a  woman!  Why  do  all  you 
young  men  crowd  round  her  like  moths  round  a 
night-light.    Whom  h.as  she  got?" 


PETER  79 

"The  rest  of  the  males,"  said  Peter.  "Male  and 
female,  you  know " 

"Stuff  and  nonsense.  There  are  people  who  are 
things!  Look  at  our  hostess,  whom  Christopher  is 
probably  embracing  at  this  moment.  I  assure  you 
she  hasn't  got  a  face;  she's  got  a  slab.  What  are 
we  coming  to?  Then  there's  her  daughter.  She's  a 
boy;  a  nice,  handsome,  healthy  boy,  doing  well.  I 
wish  my  son  was  like  her.  Do  you  know  him?  He's 
like  a  pincushion." 

Peter  was  not  actively  listening  to  these  extraor- 
dinary remarks;  he  was  taking  in  and  assimilating 
just  what  he  had  done  in  not  occupying  the  place 
indicated  to  him  by  Nellie.  He  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  he  had  not  done  so  precisely  because 
she  intended  him  to.  She  was  meaning  to  get  on 
perfectly  well  without  him,  and  had  better  begin  at 
once. 

"Why  pincushion?"  he  asked. 

"Because  I  put  pins  into  him  whenever  I  see  him. 
which  isn't  often,  and  he  just  sits  there  and  keeps 
my  pins.  He  doesn't  mind ;  he  doesn't  bleed.  He's 
nothing  at  all,  poor  wretch.  I  beg  him  to  steal  or 
bear  false  witness  or  break  any  commandment  that 
comes  handy  so  long  as  he  does  something.  He  eats 
chocolate  and  trims  hats.  I  shall  have  no  pins  left 
soon. 

"Never  mind,  Eddy!  But  what  a  horrible  opera! 
It  must  have  been  written  by  an  organist  in  collab- 
oration with  a  choirboy.  I  wonder  if  Christopher  is 
in  the  next  box  at  all.  I  expect  he's  gone  behind  to 
scrape  acquaintance  with  some  flower-maiden — prob- 
ably that  voluptuous  crone  who  came  out  of  a  large 
white  lily,  though  how  she  got  into  it  originally  is 
more  than  I  can  say,  because  she  was  bigger  than 


80  PETER 

anything  I  ever  saw.  If  only  Eddy  would  do  that 
sort  of  thing:  so  much  more  suitable.  Anaemic; 
that's  what  you  all  are.  The  women  aren't  quite  so 
bad  as  the  men.  I  know  personally  five  grand- 
mothers who  have  married  again  in  the  last  fort- 
night. But  the  grandmothers  who  continue  opti- 
mistically marrying  will  die  in  time,  and  what's  go- 
ing to  happen  to  England  then?  What's  the  use  of 
saying  'emigration/  when  there  won't  be  anybody 
to  emigrate?" 

"1  didn't  say  'emigration,' "  said  Peter,  with  his 
head  whirling.  This  sort  of  speech  was  characteristic 
of  Lady  Poole.  She  dashed  pictures  on  to  a  screen 
like  a  magic  lantern,  and  took  them  off  again  before 
you  had  seen  them,  leaving  darkness  and  the  smell 
of  oil. 

"May  Trentham,  too,"  said  this  amazing  lady.  "I 
hear  you've  been  dining  with  her.  She  would  like 
every  boy  in  the  kingdom  to  remain  celibate  for  her 
antiquated  sake.  I  will  say  for  Christopher  that  he 
doesn't  want  that.  He  would  like  every  woman  to 
do  just  the  opposite.  .  .  .  Good  gracious,  here's  an- 
other act  and  I  thought  it  was  all  over  and  that  we 
were  only  waiting  for  our  mothers.  I  adore  Parsifal; 
why  does  nobody  write  music  like  that  now?  Come 
and  see  me  to-morrow.  Any  time,  I'm  always  at 
home.  Where  is  one  to  go  in  these  days?  Profiteers 
and  Bolshevists  and  Jews!  That's  England;  mark 
my  words!" 

Peter  groped  his  way  out  of  the  box  in  the  sudden 
eclipse  of  the  lights,  sidling  by  others  who  were  tip- 
toeing back  again,  without  any  response  to  Nellie's 
signal.  He  knew  quite  well  that  there  was  an  unoc- 
cupied seat  next  her,  and  that  it  would  have  been 
the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  for  him  to  have 


PETER  81 

appropriated  it;  but  he  chose  to  consider  that  it  was 
more  suitable  yet  that  Philip  should  find  his  way 
back  to  it.  She  had  given  him  the  right  to  be 
there,  and  Peter,  with  a  tinge  of  insincerity,  told 
himself  that  he  was  behaving  with  extreme  correct- 
ness in  not  occupying  it;  the  insincerity  lying  in  the 
fact  that  his  root-reason  for  going  back  to  the  other 
box  was  that  he  was  determined  that  Nelhe  should 
not  have  everything  quite  her  own  way. 

Then  again — another  reason  for  behaving  so  prop- 
erly— she  had  said  herself  that  afteroon  that  she 
meant  to  fit  herself  to  the  conventional  mould,  and 
here  was  he  helping  to  secure  a  perfect  fit.  No  doubt 
she  was  right;  she  was  right  also  in  divining  that 
the  nature  of  the  bond  between  them  must  now 
necessarily  be  changed.  It  had  never  been  a  pas- 
sionate one;  their  individual  independence,  no  less 
than  the  material  obstacles  in  the  way  of  declared 
and  complete  surrender  to  each  other,  had  always 
stood  between  them;  but  there  seemed,  now  that  the 
bond  was  slackened,  to  have  been  potential  passion 
woven  into  it.  Perhaps  the  slight  collision  with 
Philip  in  the  doorway,  and  the  knowledge  that  he 
was  groping  his  way  back  to  the  chair  by  Nellie 
again,  accentuated  that  perception.  For  a  moment 
Peter  paused;  he  had  yet  just  time  to  slide  past 
Philip  and  occupy  the  chair;  but  there  seemed  to 
glimmer  in  the  seat  of  it  some  label  "Reserved,"  and 
he  checked  his  impulse.  No  doubt  he  would  resume 
natural  relations  with  Nellie  again  to-morrow,  or 
probably  even  to-night  in  the  dance — or  two  dances, 
was  it? — where  they  would  be  sure  to  meet,  and  a 
certain  subtle  antagonism  which  had  begun  to  smoke 
and  smoulder  within  him  would  be  quenched.  He 
left  it,  for  the  present,  at  that. 


82  PETER 

For  three  or  four  hours  more  that  night,  after 
the  conclusion  of  the  opera,  Silvia  found  herself  in 
touch  with  one  or  other  of  the  guests  who  had  so 
agreeably  and  with  so  little  ceremony  decorated  the 
fronts  of  her  mother's  boxes.  They  seemed  just  as 
much  at  home  in  Lady  Thirlmere's  house,  taking 
genial  possession  of  it,  dancing  to  her  band,  drinking 
her  champagne  in  the  same  clubable  manner.  Lord 
Poole  was  greatly  in  evidence,  surrounding  himself 
with  the  gay  moths  that  positively  stuck  in  the 
spiced  honey  of  his  outrageous  compliments  and 
could  scarcely  disentangle  their  feet  therefrom.  He 
squeezed  their  hands,  he  put  his  arm  round  their 
waists,  he  made  the  most  amazing  speeches  right 
and  left  as  to  their  irresistibility.  He  was  like  some 
mirror  into  which  every  women  looked  and  saw 
there  a  fascinating  reflection  of  herself,  that  pre- 
sented an  image  of  herself  more  delicious  than,  even 
when  trying  on  a  new  hat,  she  had  ever  supposed 
herself  to  be^  "What's  to  happen  to  us  poor  men," 
he  asked  Silvia,  "if  you're  all  of  you  going  on  being 
so  tip- top?  We  shan't  do  a  stroke  more  work;  we 
shall  spend  all  our  time  in  looking  at  you,  and  then 
who's  to  pay  your  bills?  I've  lost  my  heart  twenty 
times  already  to-night,  and  that's  enough  for  an  old 
chap  lil^e  me,  so  I  shall  take  myself  off  to  bed. 
Where's  my  wife,  I  wonder?  Can  your  bright  eyes 
pick  out  any  extra  dense  crowd  of  young  men?  If 
you  can,  I  shall  plunge  straight  into  them,  like 
taking  a  dive  after  a  pearl-oyster,  and  I'll  find  her 
right  in  the  very  middle  of  them." 

There  seemed  to  be  an  unusual  congregation  at 
the  end  of  the  drawing-room,  which  opened  on  to 
the  dancing  floor,  and  Lord  Poole  accordingly  took 
his  dive.     Silvia  could  see,  as  the  waves  of  black 


PETER  83 

coats  and  white  shirts  split  up  round  him,  that  it  was 
Mrs.  Trentham  who  was  the  pearl-oyster  just  there; 
but  the  dive  must  have  been  satisfactory,  for  Lord 
Poole  disappeared  fathoms  deep. 

Silvia  began  to  revise  her  judgment  on  the  non- 
chalant greed  of  the  mouths  that  flocked  to  be  fed. 
Everj'one  was  so  gay  and  pleasant,  so  intent  on 
laughter  and  amusement;  everyone  knew  everyone 
else.  She  had  done  no  more  than  set  eyes  on  a 
young  man  who  had  come  in  with  Mrs.  Trentham 
to  her  mother's  box,  but  Tommy  confidently  claimed 
her  as  an  old  friend,  and  she  stalked  and  slid  about 
the  floor  with  him.  At  the  conclusion  of  that  a  girl 
whom  she  remembered  with  even  mistier  vagueness 
disentangled  herself  from  another  young  man  (the 
one  who  had  slept  so  quietly  and  cried  out  so  audibly 
at  the  appearance  of  the  flower-maiden)  and  ejected 
Tommy  from  the  seat  next  Silvia.  She  was  entranc- 
ingly  pretty  in  some  wild,  dewy  manner,  and  had 
all  the  assurance  that  the  knowledge  of  a  delightful 
appearance  gives  its  possessor. 

"I  haven't  had  a  word  with  you  all  the  evening," 
she  said,  "and  I  want  to  tell  you  how  delicious  it  was 
of  your  mother  to  let  me  come  to  her  box.  I  saw 
you  round  the  edge  of  the  curtain  talking  to  Peter. 
He  raves  about  you ;  so,  as  I  wanted  to  rave  too,  I — 
well,  here  I  am.    Don't  send  me  away." 

Silvia  was  utterly  unaccustomed  to  exercise  any 
critical  faculty  where  friendliness  seemed  to  be  of- 
fered. There  were  no  outlying  forts  to  her  heart, 
no  challenging  sentries;  if  a  girl  seemed  to  like  her, 
that  was  passport  enough.  Who  this  was  she  could 
not  for  the  moment  remember,  though  doubtless  her 
name  was  among  those  which  her  mother  had  re- 
peated as  being  occupant  next  door.    Then  the  name, 


84  PETER 

Nellie  Heaton,  found  a  lodging  in  her  mind  and 
seemed  secure.  She  was  not  sure  that  she  liked  the 
information  that  Peter  was  "raving"  about  her;  but 
it  was  surely  friendliness,  the  desire  to  be  pleasant, 
that  had  prompted  the  retailing  of  it  to  her. 

"You  must  be  Miss  Heaton,"  she  said.  "Am  I 
right?  There  were  so  many  new  faces  to-night,  you 
know.  .  .  ." 

She  looked  at  Nellie  with  that  direct  gaze  that 
sought  only  to  appreciate.  There  was  certainly  a 
great  deal  to  appreciate:  the  girl  was  dazzlingly 
pretty. 

Nellie  laughed. 

"Yes;  I  suppose  I  am  Miss  Heaton  for  the  pres- 
ent," she  said. 

A  little  more  of  her  mother's  commentaries  came 
into  Silvia's  mind.  Had  there  not  been  a  man  in 
the  next  box — name  missing  for  the  moment — to 
whom  Miss  Heaton  was  engaged?  Perhaps  her 
phrase,  "for  the  present,"  alluded  to  that. 

"Ah,  I'm  beginning  to  remember,"  she  said.  "I 
remember  that  you  are  soon  to  be  married.  I  hope 
you'll  be  tremendously  happy." 

"That's  dear  of  you,"  said  Nellie.  "But  when  I 
said  I  was  Miss  Heaton  for  the  present,  I  didn't  quite 
mean  that." 

Silvia,  with  all  her  friendliness,  shrank  ever  so 
slightly  from  this.  There  was  a  certain  reserve  about 
her  which  did  not  quite  allow  the  indicated  response. 
But  the  welcome  of  her  manner  was  not  abated. 

"Do  be  kind  and  sort  out  all  these  nice  people  for 
me,"  she  said.  "I  have  grasped  Lord  Poole,  and 
isn't  it  Mr.  Mainwaring  who  is  Peter?  He  sat  next 
me  for  an  act.  All  the  Christian  names  are  a  little 
puzzling  at  first.    Then  there's  Tommy;  I  haven't 


PETER  85 

the  slightest  idea  what  his  surname  is,  though  I  shall 
know  him  again,  because  I  danced  with  him  just 
now.  And  there's  Lord  Charles,  who  went  to  sleep — 
I  shall  know  him  again " 

"And  won't  you  know  Peter  again?"  asked  Nellie. 
"That's  one  for  Peter." 

"Oh,  but  I  shall,"  said  Silvia.    "He's " 

The  tw^o  were  sitting  close  to  the  door  into  the 
ballroom,  and  at  that  moment  Peter  passed  in  front 
of  them  talking  to  a  girl.  He  just  glanced  at  them, 
took  them  both  in,  and  melted  into  the  crowd. 

"Yes;  that's  IVIr.  Mainwaring,"  said  Silvia  confi- 
dently.    "I— I  liked  him.     Don't  you  like  him?" 

Nellie  made  a  little  sideways,  bird-like  movement 
of  her  head.  Out  of  her  changed  relations  with  Peter 
she  felt  that  something  like  antagonism  had  minutely 
sprouted.  She  wanted  .  .  .  yes,  she  would  give 
an  answer  that  would  seem  wholly  appreciative  of 
Peter,  and  that  would  yet  contain  something  that 
Silvia  possibly  (just  possibly)  would  not  like. 

"Dear  Peter!"  she  said.  "Of  course,  we're  all 
devoted  to  Peter.  It's  the  fashion  to  be  devoted  to 
Peter." 


CHAPTER  V 

During  the  next  month  the  foam  and  froth  which 
spouted  from  the  weir  of  London,  into  which  Mrs. 
Wardour,  of  her  own  design  and  desire,  had  been 
so  expensively  plunged,  began  to  be  less  tumultuous 
as  she  floated  away  from  the  occasion  of  her  first 
bewildering  dive.  Lady  Thirlmere,  that  admirable 
godmother,  had  chucked  her  into  it,  holding  her 
breath  and  shutting  her  eyes,  and  now  Mrs.  War- 
dour  was  getting  her  head  above  water  and  begin- 
ning to  paddle  on  her  own  account.  The  sponsor 
had  provided  the  richness  of  total  immersion,  and 
Lucy  Wardour  was  certainly  swimming.  As  she 
came  up  to  the  surface,  she  found  herself  surrounded 
by  iridescent  bubbles;  she  was  bobbing  along  in  a 
mill-race  of  desirable  acquaintances.  She  had  made 
no  friend&— there  was  no  time  for  leisurely  processes 
of  this  sort;  but  when  she  had  decided  that  she 
wanted  to  spend  her  time  and  her  money  in  the  pur- 
suit of  some  such  indefinite  goal  as  now  loomed 
promisingly  in  front  of  her,  she  had  not  expected  to 
make  friends.  She  had  not  "gone  for"  friends;  she 
had  gone  for  something  that  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  the  accomplished  gentlemen  who  wrote  those 
small  and  exquisite  paragraphs  in  the  daily  papers. 
Inscrutably  enough,  that  happened  to  be  her  am- 
bition; what  she  wanted  was  to  see  (though  she 
knew  it  already)  that  ''Mrs.  Wardour  was  among 
those  who  brought  a  party  to  the  first  night  of  The 
Bugaboo."    .    .    .    "Mrs.  Wardour  gave  a  dinner  at 

86 


PETER  87 

Wardour  House  last  night,  followed  by  a  small 
dance."  ...  "Mrs.  Wardour  was  in  the  Park,  chat- 
ting to  her  friends,  and  wearing  a  green  toque  and 
her  famous  pearls."  .  .  .  Among  her  secretary's 
duties  was  that  of  pasting  these  juicy  morsels,  sup- 
plied by  a  press-agency,  into  a  red  morocco  scrap- 
book.  In  fact,  she  was  streaking  her  way  across  the 
bespangled  firmament  of  London,  like  a  comet,  with 
a  blank  face  and  an  anxious  eye.  But  those  who 
thought  that  the  anxious  eye  received  no  impressions 
just  because  they  were  not  instantly  recorded  on  the 
blank  face,  made  the  mistake  of  this  season. 

May  Trentham  had  undeniably  been  guilty  of  this 
error.  From  that  first  night,  when  she  had  brought 
her  young  men  to  the  opera,  she  had  thought  that 
Mrs.  Wardour  was  not  sufficiently  alive  to  her  value, 
and  as  Mrs.  Wardour  did  not  appear  to  be  learning 
any  better,  she  had  certainly  permitted  herself  to 
indulge  in  little  rudenesses,  little  patronizations, 
little  contempts,  which  Mrs.  Wardour  did  not  appear 
to  notice.  Certainly  she  made  no  direct  allusion  to 
them,  and  her  rather  meaningless  countenance 
showed  no  sign  of  having  perceived  them.  .  .  . 

This  afternoon  she  was  occupied  with  her  secre- 
tary in  making  out  a  list  of  a  favoured  few,  not  more 
than  eighty  all  told,  who  were  to  be  bidden  to  an 
entertainment  at  which  the  Russian  ballet  was  to 
figure.  She  ran  her  short,  blunt  forefinger  down  the 
alphabetical  pages  of  her  *'visiting-list,"  and  dictated 
names  to  the  gaunt  Miss  Winterton,  who  took  them 
down  in  an  angry  scribble  of  shorthand.  The  last 
few  pages  were  approaching. 

"Then  there's  Mrs.  Trentham,"  she  said  to  Silvia. 
"I  think  we'll  leave  out  Mrs.  Trentham." 

Silvia  put  in  a  mild  plea. 


88  PETER 

"She  rather  enjoys  things,  mother,"  she  said. 

There  was  a  pause,  in  which  Mrs.  Wardour  slowly 
and  deliberately  recalled  certain  moments  which  no- 
body would  have  thought  she  had  noticed. 

"Well,  she  isn't  going  to  enjoy  my  things,"  she 
said. 

They  were  seated  in  Mrs.  Wardour's  private  sit- 
ting-room in  the  great  house  in  Piccadilly.  It  was 
hung  with  French  brocade;  an  immense  Aubusson 
carpet  covered  the  floor,  and  a  Reisener  table  and 
bureau,  with  half  a  dozen  very  splendid  chairs, 
echoed  the  same  epoch.  Mrs.  Wardour  had  found 
this  a  little  too  stiff  for  domestic  ease,  and  a  decidedly 
more  homely  note  was  struck  by  a  few  wicker  chairs, 
upholstered  in  cretonne,  and  a  tea-table  of  the.same 
imperishable  material,  with  flaps  which  let  down  on 
hinges  and  formed  convenient  shelves  for  cakes  and 
teacups.  On  the  top  of  the  bureau  was  a  large 
photograph  of  the  late  Mr.  Wardour  in  watch-chain 
and  broadcloth.  There  were  but  a  few  more  names, 
and  Mrs.  Wardour  closed  the  book. 

"Then  you'll  send  'invitations  to  the  names  I've 
given  you.  Miss  Winterton,"  she  said,  "on  R.S.V.P. 
cards.  There's  no  one  else  you'd  like  to  ask,  Sil- 
via?" 

Silvia  knew  quite  well  what  she  was  intending  to 
say,  and  wondered  why  she  hesitated. 

"Will  you  ask  Mr.  Peter  Mainwaring?"  she  said. 

"Mr.  Mainwaring?    I  don't  seem  to  recollect " 

"Darling,  of  course  you  can't  recollect  everybody," 
said  the  girl ;  "but  I  should  like  him  to  be  asked." 

"Certainly  then.    What's  his  initials  and  address?" 

Silvia  supplied  this  information,  and  Miss  Win- 
terton gathered  up  her  papers  and  left  them.  She 
had  the  air  of  some  dethroned  queen,  for  whom  dis- 


PETER  89 

astrous  circumstances  had  made  it  necessary  to  per- 
form menial  offices.  Mrs.  Wardour  breathed  a  sigh 
of  obvious  relief  when  she  had  gone. 

"She  terrifies  me,  Silvia,"  she  said,  when  the  door 
had  closed.  "She  and  that  new  butler.  To  think 
that  one  of  them  is  called  Summerton  and  the  other 
Winterton.    Well,  I'm  sure!" 

Sylvia  blew  out  a  little  bubble  of  laughter. 

"Stand  up  to  them,  dear,"  she  said. 

"Yes,  it's  all  very  well  to  talk;  but  how  am  I  to 
stand  up  to  them  when  my  knees  tremble?  I 
wouldn't  have  it  known,  but  that's  the  fact.  Well, 
we  are  going  to  have  a  grand  party  next  week." 

Mrs.  Wardour  relaxed  herself  in  the  wicker 
chair. 

"It's  been  a  job  and  a  half,"  she  said,  "and  I  wish 
your  father  was  alive  to  see  what  a  good  job  and  a 
half  I've  made  of  it.  He  always  had  a  hankering 
for  high  life  himself,  but  he  was  too  busy  to  catch 
hold  of  it.  'When  I  give  the  word,  Lucy,'  he's  often 
said  to  me,  'we'll  start  in  and  show  them  all  how  to 
do  it.'  Often  he's  said  that  to  me.  And  I  always 
had  a  taste  for  it,  too ;  and  sure  enough  it  came  nat- 
ural to  me  from  the  first.  We're  pretty  well  sitting 
down  and  knowing  everybody  now." 

Hard  work  it  certainly  had  been ;  for  the  last  two 
months  Mrs.  Wardour  had  worked  as  hard  at  secur- 
ing the  goal  she  had  so  steadfastly  set  before  her  as 
her  husband  had  ever  done  in  providing  the  para- 
phernalia for  the  enterprise;  but  now  she  might 
fairly  claim  that  she  was  beginning  to  sit  and  know 
everj^body.  She  had  brought  to  her  task  an  unre- 
mitting industry,  and — when  the  tide  was  once  flow- 
ing in  her  favour,  so  that  it  was  possible  to  consider 
not  so  much  whom  she  would  ask  but  whom  she 


90  PETER 

would  leave  out — a  steely  ruthlessness.  That  ruth- 
lessness,  indeed,  had  been  a  weapon  throughout 
the  campaign;  if  a  desirable  guest  was  unable  to 
come  on  Monday,  Tuesday,  or  Wednesday,  Mrs. 
Wardour  had  adamantinely  proceeded  with  Thurs- 
day, Friday,  and  Saturday;  she  had  even  taken  her 
place  at  the  telephone  and  demanded  in  her  flat, 
firm  voice  that  her  quarry  should  consult  his  en- 
gagement-book and  let  her  know  which  was  the  first 
disengaged  night.  Ruthless,  also,  she  had  now  be- 
come, as  in  the  case  of  Mrs.  Trentham,  when  the 
question  was  one  of  omission,  and  the  party  for  the 
Russian  ballet  had  been  selected  on  the  sternest  prin- 
ciples. Thinking  over  that  now,  her  mind  reverted 
to  Silvia's  final  invitation. 

"And  who  is  your  Mr.  Mainwaring?"  she  asked. 

Silvia  again  had  to  stifle  some  embarrassment 
that,  since  it  did  not  exist  on  the  surface  at  all,  must 
have  had  some  more  secret  origin. 

"Oh,  I've  met  him  a  score  of  times,"  she  said. 
"He's  one  of  the  people  who  is  always  there.  He 
sat  between  us  once  at  the  opera,  I  think  I  remem- 
ber. One  evening  when  Lord  Poole  made  love  to 
you,  dear.  But,  somehow,  he's  never  been  to  your 
house  yet." 

"That's  more  than  most  can  say,"  remarked  Mrs. 
Wardour,  so  nearly  smacking  her  lips  that  an  im- 
partial umpire  might  have  said  that  "it  counted." 
This  set  Silvia  laughing. 

"And  what  have  I  said  now?'  asked  Mrs.  War- 
dour. 

It  was  not  so  much  what  her  mother  was  saying 
as  what  she  was  being  that  so  continually  kept  Silvia 
in  a  state  of  simmering  hilarity.  Contemplate  it  as 
she  might  she  had  never  been  able  to  comprehend 


PETER  91 

the  impulse,  or  rather  the  steady,  unwavering  devo- 
tion, that  had  kept  Mrs.  Wardour  at  such  high  pres- 
sure all  these  weeks.  She  did  not  enjoy  the  process 
of  these  eternal  entertainments;  the  gaiety  of  others 
did  not  make  her  gay;  music  made  no  appeal  to  her; 
she  was  long  past  the  age  of  dancing  (though  so 
many  of  her  contemporaries  were  not),  and  yet  she 
would  sit  benignly  content  through  the  short  hours 
of  the  summer  night,  with  her  great  tiara  on  hei* 
head,  and  feeling  the  heat  acutely,  for  the  mere 
pleasure  of  being  there.  That  she  was  there  was 
now  undeniable,  and,  happily,  having  got  there,  she 
suffered  no  disillusionment.  The  mere  chasse,  the 
acquisition,  was  certainly  not  the  mainspring  of  her 
activities.  She  had  engaged  in  the  chasse  not  for 
the  sake  of  getting  but  of  having.  .  .  . 

The  second  terror  of  her  busy  life  entered. 

^'Miss  Heaton  wants  to  know  if  you  are  at  home, 
miss?"  said  the  formidable  Summerton. 

It  was  a  relief  to  Silvia's  mother  that  she  had 
not  got  to  "stand  up"  to  Summerton,  and,  indeed, 
there  was  no  crisis  at  all,  for  close  behind  him  was 
Nellie. 

"My  dear,  I  was  so  afraid  you  might  say  that  you 
weren't  at  home,"  she  said,  "that  I  thought  it  only 
my  duty  to  save  you  telling  lies.  Am  I  interrupt- 
ing? How  are  you,  Mrs.  Wardour?  Send  me  away 
if  I  am  intruding,  or  say  that  you  have  just  gone 
out  if  you  don't  want  me  to  stop,  and  I  will  promise 
to  believe  you." 

Silvia  had  risen  with  a  flush  of  pleasure  on  her 
face  at  the  entrance  of  her  friend.  From  all  the  new 
acquaintances  of  London,  Nellie  had  made  a  shining 
emergence ;  through  all  the  mists  and  bewilderments 
of  the  new  life  she  shone  with  a  steady  beam,  like 


92  PETER 

the  luminous  finger  from  a  lighthouse,  clear  and 
steadfast  above  the  complicated  currents. 

"But  this  is  lovely,"  said  Silvia.  "Sit  down.  Tea? 
Something?  Anything?" 

She  stood  looking  at  her  with  frank,  surrendered 
gaze;  a  little  dazzled,  as  she  always  was,  with  such 
easy  unconscious  splendour.  She  regarded  Nellie,  if 
she  could  have  put  her  appreciation  into  words,  as 
she  might  have  regarded  some  golden  casket,  set 
with  gems,  which  seemed  to  have  been  laid  in  her 
hands.  She  had,  as  yet,  no  idea  what  was  inside  it; 
she  had  not  attempted  to  raise  the  lid.  It  was 
enough  at  present  to  be  allowed  to  hold  it  in  shy, 
adoring  fingers. 

"No,  nothing,"  said  Nellie;  "not  even  to  sit  down. 
I  came,  in  fact,  to  make  you  stand  up." 

"I'm  doing  that,"  said  Silvia. 

"That's  not  enough.  .  .  .  My  dear,  what  a  de- 
licious frock.  But  my  horrible  Philip  has  been 
obliged  to  go  out  of  town,  and  I'm  at  a  loose  end 
till  dinner,  and  thought  it  would  be  wonderfully, 
pleasant  to  sit  on  the  grass  somewhere.  Isn't  that 
original?  At  the  moment  when  that  rural  idea  oc- 
curred to  me,  I  passed  your  gilded  portals  and 
thought  it  would  be  even  more  wonderful  if  you 
came  and  sat  there  too.  I  don't  mean  ordinary,  dirty 
grass,  but  clean  grass.  Richmond  Park,  or  some- 
thing.   Top  of  a  bus,  of  course.    Old  hats." 

There  could  have  been  no  more  attractive  notion  to 
Silvia.  She  felt  that  it  was  just  that  she  had  long 
been  wanting;  namely,  to  be  with  Nellie  on  the 
grass  in  an  old  hat.  She  could  still  ecstatically  be 
dazzled,  could  follow  the  beam  of  the  lighthouse 
with  steady  rapture ;  but  a  fresh  aspect  of  her,  away 
from  ball-rooms  and  crowds,  just  that  old-hat  as- 


PETER  93 

pect,  she  felt  at  once  to  be  what  most  she  desired. 
She  might,  it  is  true,  be  just  as  dazzling  thus,  she 
might,  indeed,  be  more  dazzling  when  other  lesser 
brightnesses  were  withdrawn  from  her  vicinity;  bul^ 
however  she  turned  out,  she  could  not  fail  to  show 
a  new  enchantment. 

"Of  course  I'll  come,"  she  said.  "Let  me  go  and 
get  an  old  hat.     You  don't  want  me,  mother,  do 

you?" 

"No,  dear.  But  if  you'll  ring  the  bell,  I'll  order 
the  car  for  you.  Far  more  comfortable  and  far 
quicker  than  the  top  of  a  bus." 

Nellie  had  been  taking  in  the  appurtenances  of 
this  room,  to  which  she  had  not  previously  pene- 
trated, with  those  quick,  bird-like  glances  which  were 
away  again,  scarcely  alighting,  before  you  knew  they 
had  perched  at  all.  Mrs.  Wardour's  hospitable  sug- 
gestion seemed  to  contrast  with  her  own  project  in 
just  the  manner  in  which  those  creaking  cretonne 
covered  chairs  contrasted  with  the  brocade  on  the 
walls  and  the  Aubusson  on  the  floor. 

"Ah,  how  kind,"  she  said;  "but,  dear  Mrs.  War- 
dour,  the  point  of  our  expedition  is  not  to  be  com- 
fortable and  quick,  but  uncomfortable  and  slow.  I 
yearn  for  that,  and  for  being  rustic  and  common. 
Otherwise,  I  should  ask  you  to  lend  me  one  of  those 
glorious  chairs  and  let  me  sit  and  look  at  Bucking- 
ham Palace." 

"Yes,  you  can  see  it  out  of  the  window,"  said 
Mrs.  Wardour.  "But  the  top  of  a  bus — let  me  see. 
Miss  Heaton,  isn't  it — is  the  top  of  a  bus  quite  the 
thing  for  girls  like  Silvia  and  you?" 

"But  absolutely,"  said  Nellie.  "It  wouldn't  be 
a  bit  the  thing  to  drive  in  your  lovely  Rolls-Royce. 


94  PETER 

And  we  sliall  have  tea  somewhere  quite  unspeakable, 
with  dirty  napkins." 

Mrs.  Wardour  shook  her  head. 

"Now  a  nice  tea-basket  and  the  car,"  she  insin- 
uated. "Ready  in  ten  minutes,  I  beg  you,  Miss 
Heaton." 

Why  the  notion  of  Richmond  Park  and  a  bus 
and  a  tea-shop  had  blown  in  upon  Nellie  she  had 
no  clear  idea;  but  as  she  and  Silvia  swayed  and 
bounced  westwards,  it  easily  yielded  an  unconscious 
analysis.    Her  morning  had  been  taken  up  with  dress 
and  trousseau  for  the  imminent  wedding,  her  mother 
had  joined  her  at  the  dressmaker's  flushed  with 
triumph  over  some  grabbing  business  called  settle- 
ments, and  over  the    afternoon    there  had  hung, 
rather  sultrily,   the    prospect    of  long  hours  with 
Philip,  who  was  coming  to  lunch.    Her  mother,  as 
usual,  had  a  bridge  party  of  harpies,  and  no  doubt 
she  and  Philip,  just  as  she  and  Peter  had  done  not 
many  weeks  ago,  would  sit  in  the  window  and  pass 
for  being  absorbed  in  each  other.    It  was  owing,  no 
doubt,  to  the  hymeneal  morning,  and  the  prospect 
of  a   sunilar   afternoon,    that,   on   the   outpouring 
through  the  telephone  of  Philip's  calm,  but  sincere, 
regrets  that  business  claimed  him  in  the  country,  re- 
action had  opened  its  sluice-gates  and  overwhelmed 
her  with  the  desire  for  hours  physically  and  morally 
remote  from  rich  fabrics  and  opulent  comfort,  and 
from  the  ambient  atmosphere  of  things  connected 
with  just  one  theme.    She  was  perfectly  well  satis- 
fied with  the  general  prospect,  matrimonially  con- 
sidered; but  she  wanted  just  now,  as  celibacy  was 
so  soon  to  vanish,  a  foreground  of  it  and  simplicity 
and  freedom  to  her  picture.     Originally,  when  the 
telephone  had  first  told  her  of  Philip's  defection,  she 


PETER  95 

had  scarcely  made  the  needful  pause  of  ringing  off 
before  getting  into  communication  with  Peter  to 
know  whether  he  could  slip  the  official  collar  for  an 
afternoon.  Certainly  that  was  "ringing  off"  Philip 
with  some  completeness,  and  with  whom  better  than 
with  the  other  could  she  take  a  last  excursion  into 
the  country  that  would  so  soon  be  severed  from  her 
by  the  sea,  placid,  she  hoped,  of  matrimony?  But 
the  official  collar  could  not,  so  Peter's  very  distinct 
voice  told,  be  shifted.  He,  Peter's  voice,  at  any  rate, 
said  he  was  sorry;  but  he  added  no  superlatives  of 
regret,  and  before  she  had  removed  her  ear  she 
heard  the  click  of  the  replaced  instrument  at  the 
other  end.  He  rang  off,  so  it  seemed  to  her,  with  a 
certain  finality,  not  lingering  to  gossip.  That  had 
been  rather  characteristic  of  him  lately;  though  she 
had  constantly  met  him,  he  had  always  appeared  in 
that  light,  impenetrable  armour  of  his  aloofness, 
never  raising  his  visor,  nor  showing  a  joint  in  his 
liarness  where  she  could  get  at  him.  Ever  since  the 
interview  on  the  window-seat  six  weeks  ago  he  had 
been  withdrawn  like  that. 

Failing  to  get  Peter,  her  next  inclination  had  been 
to  sip  her  celibacy  alone,  for  though  Peter,  better 
than  anybody,  symbolized  the  things  that  were  pass- 
ing away  (the  wet  woods  and  the  roving  and  the 
independence),  she  would,  in  his  absence,  get  near- 
est to  them  alone.  So  she  had  already  started  on  her 
suburban  pilgrimage,  strolling  down  the  glare 
and  wilderness  of  Piccadilly  to  get  on  to  a  Richmond 
bus  at  the  corner  of  Hyde  Park,  when,  finding  her- 
self dazzled  by  the  sun  on  the  newly-gilded  gates  of 
Wardour  House,  the  notion  of  Silvia's  companion- 
ship suggested  itself,  and  she  paused  weighing  its 
advantages.     Silvia   would    certainly    give   her   an 


96  PETER 

eager,  appreciative  comradeship  (so  much  was  in- 
stantly clear),  and  on  the  heels  of  that  a  tangle  of 
other  interesting  little  curiosities,  with  tentacles  pro- 
truding, plumped  themselves  into  the  same  scale. 
She  did  not  trouble  to  unravel  them  now;  they 
would  straighten  themselves  out  as  the  afternoon 
went  on. 

Richmond  Park  proved  to  be  very  empty  of  loi- 
terers; occasionally  a  motor-bicycle,  with  a  wake  of 
dust  hanging  in  the  air  behind  it,  streaked  down  the 
yellow  road;  but,  by  the  Pen  Ponds,  no  more  than 
the  distant  throb  of  such  passenger  was  audible. 
Summer  was  in  full  leaf  among  the  oaks  and  beeches, 
retaining  still  the  varnished  freshness  of  spring,  and 
populous  in  the  shade  of  the  leafy  trees  were  herds 
of  fallow-deer,  which  lay  sleepy  and  yet  alert,  with 
twitching  ears  and  whisking  tail  against  the  incor- 
rigible menace  of  flies,  until  an  abatement  of  the 
heat  restored  appetite  for  the  young  tussocky  grass. 
The  hawthorn  was  nearly  over;  smouldering  coro- 
nets of  faded  flame,  or  grey  ash  of  dazzling  blossom 
represented  the  glories  of  May;  but  round  the  ponds 
the  humps  of  the  rhododendron  banks  were  still  on 
fire. 

Such  talk  as  had  flourished  between  the  two  girls 
had  not  yet  penetrated  beyond  the  barrier  where 
triviality  ceases,  and  past  dances,  with  keen  criti- 
cism on  their  merits,  and  dances  to  come,  and  the 
adequacy  of  various  partners  (among  whom  Peter's 
name  flitted  by  like  blowing  thistledown)  had  been 
flashed  on  and  off  the  public  plate.  There  had  been 
a  little  longer  exposure  for  the  projected  party  at 
which  the  Russian  ballet  was  to  supply  the  enter- 
tainment, and  Nellie  had  been  informed,  with  hor- 
rified eagerness  on  the  part  of  Silvia,  that,  of  course, 


PETER  97 

she  had  been  bidden:  the  invitation  had  only  been 
inscribed  that  afternoon.  Her  acceptance  of  it 
was  equally  "of  course,"  and  with  the  luck  that  at- 
tended friends,  the  date  of  it  was  a  clear  two  days 
before  her  marriage.  Trivial  though  it  had  all  been, 
she  felt  that  the  Hamadryad  (herself)  had  been  do- 
ing spade-work  in  the  shade.  The  ground  was 
cleared  and  levelled ;  every  topic  that  she  might  now 
wish  to  work  up  into  a  more  elaborate  tapestry  had 
been  put  in  on  tentative  threads,  much  as  charac-. 
ters  in  a  decently-written  drama,  flit,  at  any  rate, 
across  the  stage  in  the  first  act.  The  two,  delight- 
fully grouped,  hatless,  and  secure  from  interruption, 
had  come  to  anchor  in  the  circular  shade  of  an  old 
thorn-bush  not  far  from  the  edge  of  reeds  that 
fringed  the  pond.  The  red  petals  of  the  spent  blos- 
som dropped  down  from  time  to  time ;  the  hum  and 
murmur  of  June  woods  was  a  carpet  on  which  more 
intimate  conversation  could  lightly  spread  itself. 

Nellie  drew  up  and  clasped  her  knees. 

"Fancy  my  impertinence  in  dragging  you  out  to 
Richmond  Park  when  I  know  that  you  had  a  hun- 
dred things  that  you  wanted  to  do,"  she  said.  "Tell 
me,  what  would  you  have  done  if  I  hadn't  appeared 
like  some  bird  of  prey  and  clawed  you?  Now  don't 
say  that  you  would  have  had  tea  with  your  mother 
and  gone  for  a  drive  in  the  Park.  If  you  do,  I  simply 
shan't  believe  you." 

Yes,  she  was  more  dazzling,  so  Silvia  found,  when 
there  was  no  one  to  contrast  her  with.  The  sheer, 
silly,  conventional  tittle-tattle  took  a  sparkling  qual- 
ity quite  alien  to  it  when  it  came  from  her  mouth. 
Her  personality  was  like  coloured  lights  playing  on 
a  fountain  and  turning  the  drops  to  gems. 

"I  must  be  silent,  then,"  she  said. 


98  PETER 

"Oh,  don't  be  silent!  When  people  are  silent  it 
means  they  are  only  being  polite.  If  they  were  less 
polite  they  would  say  that  they  were  excruciatingly 
bored.  Then,  after  a  suitable  silence,  they  would  say, 
'How  charming  it  is  here!'  Don't  say  'how  charm- 
ing it  is  here.'  That  v/ill  be  the  last  straw,  Silvia. 
Dear  me,  I  said  'Silvia'  by  accident.  It — what  they 
call — slipped  out." 

"Oh,  do  say  it  on  purpose,  then,"  said  Silvia. 

"Very  well;  me  too,  you  understand.  What  a 
funny  business  is  Christian  names!  The  Christian 
name  is  never  really  ripe  till  it  drops.  I  wonder  if 
you  know  what  an  unutterable  boon  you  and  your 
mother  have  been  to  that  smoky  place  over  there. 
And  to  crown  it  all,  you  are  giving  the  most  de- 
lightful party  with  the  most  gorgeous  punctuality, 
as  far  as  I  am  concerned.  Do  say  you  settled  it  for 
that  night  because  you  knew  I  couldn't  come  on  any 
subsequent  night." 

Silvia  gave  a  little  moan  like  a  dove  in  a  tree. 

"I  can't  say  that,"  she  said. 

Nellie  sighed,  wholly  appreciatively. 

"That's  so  refreshing  of  you,"  she  said.  "You're 
one  of  the  real  people,  I  expect;  the  people  who 
mean  what  they  say.  I  usually  mean  what  I  don't 
say." 

Silvia  turned  round  and  lay  facing  her  friend. 

"Don't  say  it,  then,  Nellie,"  she  said.  "I  mean — 
do  say  the  things  you  mean.  How  complicated  it 
sounds,  and  how  simple  it  is.  Shall  we  stop  talk- 
ing about  me,  do  you  think?  I've  got  another  sub- 
ject." 

"I  know  it,"  said  Nellie.  "What  about  Peter? 
I  adore  Peter,  by  the  way;  don't  say  anything  hor- 
rid." 


PETER  99 

A  certain  sense  of  shock  came  to  Silvia.  Peter 
had  not,  ever  so  remotely,  been  the  subject  to  which 
she  alluded.  But  when  Nellie  suggested  him,  he  was 
flashed  on  the  screen  with  disconcerting  vividness. 

"But  I  didn't  mean  him  at  all,"  she  said.  "1 
wasn't  thinking  about — about  Mr.  Mainwaring." 

"He  wouldn't  like  that,"  said  Nellie. 

Silvia  sat  up.  She  had  a  perfectly  clear  con- 
science to  endorse  an  immediate  repudiation.  What 
caused  that  suspicious,  that  questionable  little  leap 
of  blood  to  her  cheeks,  was,  indeed,  not  that  she  had 
been  thinking  of  Peter,  but  that  Nellie  supposed  she 
had. 

"Oh,  but  this  is  quite  silly!"  she  exclaimed.  "In- 
deed, he  wasn't  in  my  mind  at  all.  Why  should  he 
be?    I  scarcely  know  him." 

Nellie  knew  that  she  had  ceased  for  that  moment 
to  dazzle  Silvia,  to  whom  the  suggestion  that  Peter 
had  been  in  her  mind  was  clearly  unwelcome  and 
unexpected.  It  might  be  true  or  it  might  not  (so 
ran  Nellie's  swift  argument)  that  Silvia  was  not 
thinking  of  Peter  at  all ;  but  that  she  should  be  ruf- 
fled— ever  so  delightfully — at  the  notion  that  she 
had  been,  constituted  a  symptom,  did  it  not?  .  .  . 
But  it  was  enough  to  note  that,  and  pass  on  at  once 
to  the  easy  task  of  dazzling  Silvia  again. 

"You  are  too  delicious,"  she  said.  "Yes,  I'm 
going  to  stick  to  my  subject  for  a  minute  longer, 
which  is  you,  since  yours  isn't  Peter.  You've  got 
the  most  lovely  lack  of  self-consciousness,  do  you 
know?  Of  course  you  don't,  or  you  wouldn't  have 
it.  But  when  I  talk  to  other  girls,  we  each  think 
about  ourselves.  It's  like  talking  to  a  boy — not 
Peter,  mind — to  talk  to  you." 

Silvia  made  some  gesture  of  deprecation. 


100  PETER 

"'No,  I  will  go  on,"  said  Nellie.  "Look  at  the 
glass  I  hold  up  to  you,  please.  It  isn't  only  the 
lovely  parties  that  you  and  your  mother  have  given 
us  that  have  polished  up  the  rusty  old  season:  it's 
your  quality — what  shall  I  call  it — wind  and  sun, 
sexlessness.  You  just  move  along  like  a  spring  day, 
with  all  your  banners  streaming,  in  the  most  en- 
trancing glee.  You're  absolutely  insouciante,  if  you 
understand  French." 

Silvia  had  lost  sight  of  Peter  by  now;  he  was 
round  the  corner,  and  how  near  that  corner  was, 
was  immaterial.  She  wanted  to  put  herself  round 
the  corner,  too,  and  seized  on  this  as  a  possible  diver- 
sion. 

"Oh,  yes,  I  do,"  she  said.  "I  only  came  back 
this  spring  from  three  years  in  France." 

"There  you  are  again!  There's  another  of  your 
complet-enesses.  You're  spread  evenly,  richly,  like 
butter  (when  we're  all  eating  margarine)  over  the 
whole  slice  of  life.  I  wish  I  could  bite  you!  I 
believe  that  with  a  little  trouble  I  could,  and,  if  so,  I 
should  hate  you,  not  for  what  you've  got  but  for 
what  I  haven't." 

At  this  moment  Nellie  became  aware  that  her  day 
in  the  wet  woods  had  changed  the  character  with 
which,  prospectively,  she  had  endowed  it.  She  had 
meant,  first  with  Peter  as  her  companion,  and  next 
by  herself,  to  enjoy  the  last  hours  of  her  celibacy. 
With  Silvia,  on  the  other  hand,  she  was  now  not 
enjoying  her  own,  but  envying  her  companion's. 
What  she  envied  her  most  for  was  her  decorated 
simplicity.  Silvia  wore  her  decorations  externally; 
she  didn't  attempt  to  swallow  them  and,  by  diges- 
tion, make  them  build  up  a  complicated  identity. 
Worst  of  all — from  the  envious  point  of  view — she 


PETER  101 

didn't  know  how  splendidly  embellished  she  was. 
...  It  was  as  if  j^ou  said  to  a  gallant  soldier,  "Have 
you  got  the  V.C?"  sarcastically  almost,  and  then  he 
looked  down — not  up — at  his  decorations,  and  found 
that  the  little  piece  of  riband  was  there. 

Silvia  moved  a  shade  away  from  her  companion. 
The  break  in  the  thorn  tree,  with  the  consequent 
oval  of  hot  sunlight,  quite  accounted  for  that, 

"But  what  haven't  you  got?"  she  asked.  "You 
live,  as  naturally  as  drawing  breath,  the  life  that's 
so  new  to  me,  and  so  puzzling  and  so  delightful; 
and  below  and  beyond  all  that,  you're  on  the  point 
of  being  married.  He  chose  you,  out  of  all  the  world, 
and  you  found  all  the  time  that  you  had  chosen 
him.  What  is  there  left  for  you,  just  you  now  and 
here,  to  want?    You're  adorable " 

Silvia  wrestled  and  threw  the  bugbear  of  shyness 
which  so  often  sat  on  her  shoulders  and  strangled 
her  neck.  There  it  writhed  on  the  grass,  not  in  the 
least  dead,  but,  for  the  moment,  knocked  out. 

"Oh,  sometimes  I  wish  I  was  a  boy,"  she  said. 
"I'm  more  in  that  key  than  in  ours.  Sometimes  I 
think " 

Nellie  projected  herself  into  that  gap  of  sunlight 
which,  possibly,  Silvia  shrank  from.  She  had  no 
definite  scheme  of  exploration  for  the  moment,  but 
it  seemed  to  her  that  something  in  the  tangle  of 
motives  with  which  she  had  invited  Silvia  to  share 
her  afternoon  was  faintly  stirring  as  if  with  unravel- 
ment.  Those  loops  and  knots  might  get  more  inex- 
tricably muddled,  it  is  true;  but,  conceivably,  the 
whole  thing  might  "come  out"  like  a  conjuring 
trick. 

"Ah,  what  is  it  that  you  think?"  she  asked.  "Don't 
stop  so  tantalizingly.    As  if  thinking  wasn't  every- 


102  PETER 

thing!    Whatever  one  does  is  only  a  clumsy  trans- 
lation of  what  one  has  thought.    Think  aloud!" 

Nellie  looked  more  than  ever  at  that  moment  like 
some  exquisite  wild  presence  of  the  woodlands, 
Dryad  or  Bacchante,  delicate  and  subtle  in  face  and 
limb  and  brain,  and  merely  proto-plasmic  in  soul,  a 
creature  made  for  the  bedazzlement  and  the  undoing 
of  man.  Certainly  she  had  woven  her  spells  over 
Silvia  again;  the  momentary  check  in  the  incanta- 
tion, when  she  had  attributed  "Peter-thought"  to 
her,  had  passed  as  swiftly  as  the  shadow  of  one  of 
those  light  clouds  which  drifted  over  the  grass. 

But  at  that  moment,  when  she  so  bewilderingly 
shone  out  again,  there  formed  itself  in  Silvia's  mind, 
as  she  tried  to  follow  this  injunction  to  think  aloud, 
not  the  image  of  her  at  all,  but  of  Peter.  For  if 
Nellie  was  divinely  akin  to  the  blossoming  thickets 
and  the  shadows  that  were  beginning  to  lengthen 
over  the  grass,  making  cool  islands  on  which  the  deer 
were  grazing  now,  he,  too,  would  be  no  less  har- 
moniously bestowed  by  this  reflecting  lake-side.  It 
was  not  that  either  of  them  suggested  rurality;  no 
one,  indeed,  was  more  emphatically  of  the  street  and 
the  ballroom  and  the  complication  of  the  city  than 
they.  But  by  some  secret  pedigree  of  soul  they  were 
of  the  house  and  lineage  of  the  things  that  glowed 
and  enjoyed  and  were  lovely,  and  gave  as  little 
thought  to  yesterday  as  they  took  for  to-morrow. 
All  this,  not  catalogued  in  detail,  but  fused  into  a 
single  luminous  impression,  passed  through  Silvia's 
consciousness    like    the    wink    of    summer    light- 


'J3^ 


nmg. 


"As  if  it  wasn't  difiicult  enough  to  think  at  all," 
she  said,  "and  as  for  thinking  aloud,  thinking  articu- 
lately— if  I'm  to  sum  it  up,  ever  so  clumsily,  it's 


PETER  103 

merely  that  I  adore,  with  all  the  incense  I've  got, 
the  thought  of  your  happiness.  It  does  matter  so 
much  to  me,  and  .  .  .  and  isn't  it  noble  to  find 
someone  who  matters?  Very  few  people  really  mat- 
ter; I  suppose  little,  silly,  finite  hearts  like  ours  can't 
take  in  many.  But  those  who  do  matter  must  come 
right  in,  if  they  don't  mind.  They  mustn't  risk 
themselves  by  hanging  about  on  the  doorstep ;  they 
might  catch  cold.  Aren't  I  talking  nonsense?  It's 
your  fault  for  taking  me  into  the  country,  for  as- 
suredly it  has  gone  to  my  head.  Where  there's  a 
stifle  of  roofs  and  a  choke  of  streets  nobody  matters 
and  everyone  is  quite  delightful.  What  a  stupid 
word  that  is,  and  how  expressive  of  a  stupid  thing." 

Silvia  very  deliberately  shot  off  into  the  back- 
water of  nonsense,  so  to  speak,  out  of  the  main 
stream,  for  the  sun  was  on  the  water,  in  this  dazzle 
of  Nellie's  personality,  and  she  could  not  see  toward 
what  weir  the  hurrying  river  might  be  taking  her. 
Very  likely  there  was  no  weir;  the  glistening  tide, 
running  swift,  would  very  likely  spread  out  into 
some  broad  expanse  of  Peace-pools;  but  it  was  the 
brightness  that  prevented  scrutiny. 

By  some  flash  of  woodland  instinct,  by  some  un- 
canny perception,  Nellie  divined  the  cause  of  this 
retirement  into  the  backwater  of  triviality.  With  a 
ruthlessness  that  rivalled  Mrs.  Wardour's  pursuit 
of  desirable  guests,  she  caught  the  rope  of  Silvia's 
boat,  so  to  speak,  before  she  could  tie  it  to  the  secur- 
ity of  some  overhanging  branch,  and  shot  it  out  into 
the  main  stream  again. 

"Yes,  my  dear,"  she  said,  ''you  talk  nonsense  de- 
lightfully. Ah,  I  didn't  mean  stupidly ;  I  didn't  mean 
in  the  sense  you  had  just  labelled  it  with.  I  meant 
delightfully,  charmingly.     But    just    for  a  change 


104  PETER 

after  that  delightful  (now  I  mean  stupid)  London, 
we're  talking  sense.  You  interested  me  indescrib- 
ably just  now.  You  said  you  were  more  in  a  boy's 
key  than  a  girl's.    What  did  you  mean  exactly?" 

Silvia  watched  the  receding  shore  to  which  she 
had  hoped  to  tie  up.  .  .  .  After  all,  what  did  it  mat- 
ter if  there  was  a  weir,  not  a  Peace-pool  down  there 
in  that  dazzle  of  benignant  sunshine?  But  there 
was  another  difi&culty  in  the  way  of  expression. 

''I  can't  really  explain,"  she  said.  'There  are 
things  so  simple  that  no  explanation  is  possible.  If 
I  said,  'It  is  a  hot  day,'  and  you  told  me  to  explain, 
I  couldn't.  I  could  only  say,  'If  you  don't  feel  it, 
if  you  don't  know  what  that  means,  I  can't  help 
you.'    It's  the  same  with  all  elemental  things." 

Nellie  regarded  her  with  eyes  that  were  framed 
in  some  steely  sort  of  interest;  eyes  that  were  eager 
to  know  not  from  the  kindly  tenderness  of  friends 
but  from  some  surgical  curiosity. 

"I  think  I  know  what  you  mean  by  a  'boy's  key,'  " 
she  said.  "Let  me  see  if  I  can  explain  you  to  your- 
self, Silvia,  since  you  won't — ah,  can't — explain  your- 
self to  me.  If  you  were  in  love,  for  instance,  you 
would  passionately  want  to  give  love,  to  pour  your- 
self out,  instead  of,  like  most  girls,  provoking  love 
and  permitting  it  and  ever  so  eagerly  receiving  it. 
You  wouldn't  want  a  man's  homage  so  much  as  you 
would  want  to  be  allowed  to  love  him.  You  would 
want,  and  how  queer  and  delicious  of  you — you 
lovely  upside-down,  inside-out  creature." 

This  abrupt  termination  of  the  presentment  of 
Silvia  in  love,  as  imagined  by  her  friend,  was  due  to 
something  quite  unexpected.  There  came  on  Silvia's 
face,  as  her  own  privacy  was  thus  invaded,  a  dumb, 
but  none  the  less  violent  signal  of  protest.     She 


PETER  105 

shrank  and  withdrew  herself,  as  if  a  burglarious 
bull's-eye  had  been  shot  through  the  window  of  her 
room,  where  she  lay  lost  in  cool,  soft  maidenliness. 
The  contact  was  even  more  direct  than  that;  it  was 
as  if  some  pitiless  incision  had  been  made  in  her  very 
flesh.  But  with  this  pause  in  the  application  of  the 
knife,  this  shuttering  of  the  bull's-eye — for  any  fur- 
ther beam  would  have  disclosed  the  deUberate  at- 
tempt to  rifle  the  jewel-chest — there  came  the  com- 
plete withdrawal  of  her  protesting  signal.  ...  It 
had  been  the  bull's-eye  of  a  friend  that  looked  in, 
the  scissors  of  a  dear  amateur  manicurist.  .  .  . 

She  was  sitting  there  hatless  in  the  shade,  and 
with  her  hand  she  pushed  her  hair  back. 

''Oh,  you're  a  witch,  Nellie,"  she  said.  "Two  hun- 
dred years  ago  you  would  have  been  burned,  and  I 
should  have  helped  to  pile  the  faggots.  I  expect 
that  you're  magically  right.  I  can't  tell,  you  know, 
because  I  assure  you,  literally  and  soberly,  that  I 
never  have  been  in  love.  Literally  never.  Soberly 
never.  But,  somehow,  what  you  suggested  (how  did 
you  divine  it,  you  witch?)  touched  something,  made 
something  vibrate  and  sing.  I  didn't  know  anything 
about  it;  I  didn't  know  it  was  there.  Then  you 
put  your  finger  on  it,  and  I  knew  ...  I  knew  I 
had  it." 

"And  then  you  just  hated  me  for  a  moment," 
said  Nellie. 

Silvia  did  not  quite  accept  this. 

"You  made  me  wince,"  she  said  in  correction. 
"And,  oh,  yes,  I'll  confess:  just  for  a  moment  you 
seemed  to  me  hostile  and  hurting.  You  aren't; 
you're  heavenly  and  healing.  You  taught  me,  bless 
you.  But  I  think  you're  a  witch  all  the  same.  It 
wasn't    telepathy,    because   you    guessed — no,    not 


106  PETER 

guessed — you  told  me  something  about  myself  that 
I  didn't  know,  and  couldn't  have  known,  and  can't 
know  now,  for  that  matter.  Oh,  you  lucky  creature. 
You've  fallen  in  love.  You  know  it  all.  Did  you 
do  it  in  the  manner  you  attribute  to  me?  Did  you 
savagely  give,  not  wanting  anything  but  to  give, 
give.  .  .  .  How  did  you  put  it  just  now?  To  be 
allowed  to  love,  to  pour  yourself  out,  to  pay  homage 
instead  of  exacting  it?  The  boy's  key!  My  dear^ 
it  seems  ages  and  ages  since  that  phrase  came  up. 
I've  had  a  whole  drama  since  then,  you  know." 

Nellie,  in  point  of  fact,  had  had  her  drama,  too. 
But  it  was  as  yet  undetermined.  She  had  not  got  at 
the  root  facts  for  which  she  was  burrowing.  Silvia's 
volley  of  questions,  anyhow,  were  easy  of  response. 
They  were,  barring  a  certain  inversion,  very  Vic- 
torian questions,  dating  from  the  days  when  men 
blindly  adored  and  women  swooned  at  the  declara- 
tion of  the  passion  which  they  had  done  their  level 
best  to  excite.  But  that  inversion  made  to  her,  and 
for  particular  reasons,  a  wildly  interesting  specula- 
tion. Silvia,  when  she  loved  (so  much  was  certain), 
would  love  in  the  "boy's  key,"  the  eager,  evocative 
key.  She  acknowledged  herself,  in  contemplation 
of  the  event,  as  blindly  adoring,  as  being  "allowed" 
to  love.  Whether  that  was  entirely  a  prognostica- 
tion, or  whether  it  was  already  partially,  poten- 
tially fulfilled  was  another  question,  and  the  applica- 
tion of  that  concerned  Nellie,  and  her  own  purposes, 
alone.  Soon,  deftly  now,  with  the  lesson  of  Silvia's 
revolt  against  surprises,  she  would  get  a  further 
result  from  her  dissection.  At  present  there  was  the 
impatient,  intimate  volley  of  questions  to  answer. 

"Oh,  my  dear,  I  understand  so  well  the  'boy's 
key,'  "  she  said.    "A  triumphal,  victorious  surrender, 


PETER  107 

with  all  the  bells  ringing— isn't  that  it?  A  march 
out  with  white  flags  insolently  flying.  I  should  love 
to  be  like  that,  if  I  was  like  that.  But  that  isn't  my 
key.  I  just  surrendered,  rather  terrified,  you  know. 
But  I  couldn't  be  terrified  of  Philip  for  long:  he's 
such  a  dear." 

This  could  not  be  considered  more  than  an  approx- 
imate account,  a  vague  sketch,  very  faintly  resembl- 
ing the  scene  it  portrayed — a  quiet,  feminine  dis- 
closure. But  Nellie  did  not  want  to  discuss  that; 
she  wanted  to  get  back  to  her  tangled  skeins  again. 

"I  should  like  to  see  you  in  love,  Silvia,"  she  said. 
"Promise  to  tell  me  when  it  happens.  At  least,  you 
needn't;  it  will  be  wonderfully  obvious,  you  in  your 
'boy's  key.'  Whom  can  we  find  for  you  who  will  just 
fall  in  with  that,  and  be  the  complement  of  it,  mak- 
ing it  complete  and  round  and  perfect?  Hasn't  ever 
so  little  a  bit  of  him,  just  the  top  of  his  head  come 
over  the  horizon  yet?" 

Silvia  did  not  withdraw  nor  raise  any  signal  of 
protest  this  time.  She  made  no  signal  at  all ;  none, 
at  any  rate,  that  could  be  perceived  by  the  girl  who 
sat  watching  her  very  narrowly.  And  once  more 
Nellie  fumbled,  so  to  speak,  at  the  shutter  of  her 
bull's-eye  which  would  flash  on  the  light. 

She  looked  at  the  watch  on  her  wrist. 

"My  dear,  how  late  it  is!"  she  said.  "We  must 
go  at  once.  I  promised  to  go  to  Mr.  Mainwaring's 
studio.  Peter's  father,  you  know.  Peter  will  be 
vexed  if  I  don't  come." 

Then  came  the  signal.  Silvia  jumped  up  with 
wholly  unnecessary  alacrity.  But  more  nimbly  yet 
did  the  high  colour  mount  to  her  face. 


CHAPTER  VI 

One  evening,  a  week  or  so  before  the  date  fixed 
for  the  wedding,  Philip  Beaumont  and  Nellie  had 
dined  and  gone  together  to  the  first  night  of  some 
new  play.  It  was  saliently  characteristic  of  him — a 
peak,  so  to  say,  prominently  uprising  from  the 
smooth  level  of  his  cultivated  plains,  that  when  ar- 
rangements for  such  diversions  and  businesses  were 
in  his  hands  they  always  went  without  a  hitch. 
Nellie  had  expressed  a  desire  to  see  this  play,  with- 
out giving  long  notice  to  him  of  her  wish,  and  it  fol- 
lowed, as  a  matter  of  course,  that  he  managed  to  get 
gangway  seats  in  the  stalls  at  the  most  advantageous 
distance  from  the  stage. 

Things  happened  like  that  with  him:  his  own 
unruffled  smoothness,  which  seemed  immune  from 
any  of  the  attacks  of  asperities  of  one  kind  or  an- 
other, to  which  human  nature  is  subject,  seemed  to 
create  a  similar  well-ordered  decorum  in  his  activi- 
ties. To-night,  for  instance,  the  dinner  which  pre- 
ceded the  theatre  was  punctual  and  swiftly  served, 
so  that  neither  hurry  nor  undue  lingering  followed 
it:  his  motor  slid  up  to  the  kerb-stone  precisely  as 
they  quitted  the  restaurant,  and  it  might  be  taken 
for  granted  that  at  the  conclusion  of  the  piece  it 
would  glide  up  opposite  the  portals  of  the  theatre 
precisely  as  they  emerged.  Once  in  their  seats  there 
had  been  but  a  few  minutes  to  wait  before  the  lights 
were  lowered  for  the  first  act;  these  afforded  a  con- 
venient time  to  grasp  the  real  and  the  histrionic 

108 


PETER  109 

names  of  the  actors  and  see  where  the  acts  were 
laid. 

In  those  few  minutes  Nellie's  glance  had  swept 
over  stalls  and  boxes,  noting  the  position  of  various 
friends.  Silvia  was  in  a  box  with  her  mother,  and 
loud  screams  of  laughter  from  another  box  opposite, 
perhaps  temporarily  turned  into  a  parrot-house, 
made  it  almost  certain  that  Mrs.  Trentham  was 
having  her  usual  splendid  time  surrounded  by  a 
bevy  of  young  men.  A  glance  verified  that,  and  the 
same  glance  showed  her  that  Peter,  who,  she  knew, 
was  to  be  present,  was  not  among  them.  Then  some 
one  entered  the  box  where  Silvia  and  her  mother 
sat,  and  she  knew  where  Peter  was.  Immediately  a 
loud  flamboyant  voice  just  behind  her  informed  her 
that  Peter's  entry  had  been  noticed  by  some  one  else. 

"Glance,  Maria  mia,"  it  said,  "at  that  box  next 
the  stage  on  the  right,  where  is  the  lady  with  the 
wealth  of  Golconda  (I  allude  to  diamonds)  on  her 
head.  You  and  I  have  no  reason  to  be  ashamed  of 
that  tall  handsome  boy.  Ah,  behold  just  in  front  of 
us  the  adorable  Miss  Heaton.  Miss  Heaton,  the  box 
by  the  stage,  the  lady  in  diamonds:  her  name.  A 
word,  a  whisper.  .  .   !" 

The  quenching  of  lights  gave  suitable  cover  for 
the  emotions  evoked  by  this  particular  brand  of  the- 
atrical slosh.  There  were  whimsicalities,  there  was 
slyness,  there  was  maidenliness  and  womanliness, 
there  was  the  sense  of  looking  through  a  keyhole; 
but  all  these  qualities  were  soaked  and  dyed  with 
slosh.  Mr.  Mainwaring,  to  Nellie's  sense,  seemed  to 
make  himself  spokesman  for  the  house:  he  thrilled 
to  every  slyness,  however  subtle,  and  he  advertised, 
on  behalf  of  the  rest  of  the  audience,  his  apprecia- 
tion.   His  resonant  laugh  proclaimed  the  gorgeous- 


110  PETER 

ness  of  the  less  abstruse  humours,  as  when  the  hero- 
ine, being  asked  to  give  her  lover  a  kiss,  wore  a  face 
of  horror  and  said,  ''Eh,  on  the  Sawbath!"  His 
giggling  and  his  slapping  of  his  great  big  thigh  gave 
the  cue  for  more  recondite  deliciousness;  he  ex- 
claimed "Bravd!  Bravd!"  at  the  end  of  a  long 
speech;  he  blew  his  nose  loudly  at  the  blare  of  the 
Highland  Vox  Humana,  and  bestowed  one  splendid 
sob  on  his  handkerchief  when  the  author  really  let 
himself  go  and  opened  all  the  sluices  of  sentimen- 
tality. Mr.  Mainwaring  had  to  recover  with  gulps 
and  hiccups  from  that,  but  he  pulled  himself  to- 
gether like  a  man,  and  ran  his  fingers  through  his 
hair  to  make  it  stand  out  from  his  interesting  head. 
Though  these  convulsions  were  resonant  only  just 
behind  her,  Nellie  gave  them  no  more  attention  than 
she  would  give  to  raindrops  on  the  window:  and  the 
doings  of  the  stage  occupied  her  as  little,  and  as 
little  the  presence  next  her  of  the  perfect  organizer. 
....  A  certain  antagonism  had  grown  up,  had 
seeded  itself  and  was  rapidly  propagating.  A  vigor- 
ous seedling  was  the  fact  of  Peter's  being  where  he 
was.  It  was  no  business  of  hers,  so  she  told  herself, 
with  whom  Peter  went  to  the  play,  and  she  tried  to 
divert  her  mind  by  ironical  comment.  Peter,  poor 
and  parasitic,  would  always  dance  a  graceful  attend- 
ance on  anyone  who  would  give  him  dinner  and  a 
seat  in  the  box.  Peter  was  like  that,  and  for  his 
grace  and  politeness  there  was  a  due  reward  of  din- 
ners and  dramas.  He  had  a  trick  of  sympathetic 
listening,  of  intelligent  interrogation  that  made  his 
companion  feel  herself  interesting.  You  could  put 
him  next  the  most  crashing  bore,  and  he  would 
wreathe  himself  in  smiles  until  the  crashing  bore 
felt  herself  to  be  the  wittiest  of  sirens.    And  then 


PETER  111 

suddenly  the  stupidity  of  her  comments  and  their 
irrelevance  failed  to  divert  Nellie  altogether. 

There  was  the  antagonism,  hugely  grown  by  now. 
Peter,  so  she  made  out,  was  as  conscious  of  it  as 
she,  and  had  certainly  during  the  last  week  or  two 
contributed  to  its  growth.  He  had  answered  Nellie's 
formalities  with  similar  politeness:  he  had  watered 
where  she  had  sown,  and  she  wondered  whether  he 
contemplated  with  the  dismay  of  which  she  was  con- 
scious, the  lively  crop  of  their  combined  husbandry. 

It  was  the  fashion,  as  she  had  once  said  to  Silvia, 
to  be  devoted  to  Peter,  and  Silvia  seemed  to  have 
"picked  up"  the  fashion  with  the  same  ease  as  she 
had  exhibited  all  along  her  social  pilgrimage.  She 
welcomed  all  that  came  up  with  a  frolic,  boy-like 
enjoyment,  but  there  was,  as  Nellie  perfectly  well 
knew,  a  real  Silvia,  a  serious  Silvia,  somebody  with, 
a  heart  and  the  shy  treasures  of  it,  a  personality 
curiously  ungirl-like,  something  eager  and  hungry 
and  wholesome.  She  knew  in  advance  what  her  way 
of  love  would  be,  and  her  feet,  firm  and  unstumbling 
— Silvia  would  never  stumble — were  on  the  high 
road.  Of  all  the  saunterers  that  she  might  meet 
there,  would  she  not,  by  the  mere  instinct  of  divina- 
tion, choose  the  complement  to  her  own  unusual 
personality?  The  complement  certainly  was  some- 
one feminine  but  not  effeminate,  indeterminate  in 
desire,  somebody,  in  fact,  extraordinarily  like  Nellie 
herself.  In  the  way  of  a  girl,  Silvia  had  already 
quite  succumbed  to  a  charm  that  Nellie  had  not 
troubled  to  exercise:  she  had  recognized  and  sur- 
rendered to  it  with  that  victorious  white-flag  aban- 
donment. With  what  ringing  of  bells  would  she  not 
march  out  to  the  mildest  call  for  capitulation  when 
a  boy  of  that  type  blew  his  lazy  horn? 


112  PETER 

Long  before  the  act  was  over  Nellie  had  known 
that  she  would  present  herself  in  the  interval  at  Mrs. 
Wardour's  box.  She  would,  in  anticipation,  have 
much  to  say  to  Silvia :  there  would  be  plans  for  the 
next  day,  or  regrets  over  the  dreadful  occupations 
that  made  plans  impossible.  There  would  be  some 
flat  steady  compliment  about  diamonds  and  parties 
for  Mrs.  Wardour,  and — there  would  be  nothing  at 
all  for  Peter.  She  wanted,  as  far  as  she  was  aware, 
just  to  take  him  in  in  the  new  situation  which  was 
surely  forming,  as  clouds  form  on  a  chilly  windless 
day.  She  wanted  to  get  used  to  it,  she  wanted — or 
did  she  not  want? — to  put  the  weed-killer  of  famil- 
iarity on  the  crop  of  antagonism  which  was  certainly 
prospering  in  a  manner  wholly  unlocked  for.  And 
then,  much  quieted  and  reassured,  she  would  return 
to  Philip,  and  feel  for  his  hand  when  the  lights  went 
down  again.  He  had  a  good  hand,  cool  and  secure 
and  efficient:  there  was  the  sense  of  safety  about 
it,  of  correctness:  it  was  all  that  a  hand  should  be. 
Then,  still  secure,  and  vastly  more  content  than  she 
was  now,  he  would  take  her  back  to  her  mother's 
flat,  and  perhaps  drop  in  for  a  half-hour. 

She  would  say,  quite  correctly,  "Come  upstairs 
and  talk  to  mother  and  me  lor  a  few  minutes."  She 
would  work  the  lift  herself,  and  he  would  be  sur- 
prised at  her  mastery  of  it.  Then,  when  they  were 
vomited  forth  at  the  fifth  floor,  she  would  remember 
that  her  mother  had  gone  to  a  bridge-party  and 
would  certainly  not  be  home  before  twelve.  That 
would  give  them  their  half-hour  alone. 

Nellie  was  not  prepared  for  the  companionship  in 
her  expedition  with  which  Mr.  Mainwaring  deco- 
rated her.    Standing  in  the  middle  of  the  gangway, 


PETER  113 

he  made  her  a  sonorous  and  embellished  little 
speech  when,  rather  rashly,  she  revealed  her  destina- 
tion at  the  end  of  this  interminable  first  act. 

"Peter's  friends,  my  Peter's  friends  are  mine/'  he 
magnificently  observed,  ''and  I  feel  it  my  duty  to 
pay  my  respects  to  them.  Oblige  me,  Miss  Heaton, 
by  accepting  my  escort  to  the  box  that  glitters  with 
the  combined  distinction  of  diamonds  and  Peter's 
presence.  My  wife — will  3''ou  not  Maria  miaf — wUl 
prefer  to  remain  precisely  where  she  is.  Chocolates 
my  beloved?  A  cup  of  coffee?  I  will  leave  my  purse 
with  you.    Refresh  yourself!" 

Mrs.  Mainwaring  declined  refreshment,  except  in 
so  far  as  it  was  ministered  to  by  some  advertisements 
of  Brighton  hotels  which  appeared  on  the  back  of  the 
programme.  There  was  one  there  which  she  had  not 
previously  heard  of  and  which  seemed  very  reason- 
able. 

Her  husband  offered  the  sleeve  of  a  velveteen-clad 
arm  to  Nellie,  and  they  proceeded  upstairs  with 
pomp  and  the  slight  odour  of  turpentine,  which  was 
all  that  was  left  of  a  dab  of  paint  which  had  dropped 
from  his  brush  on  to  the  skirt  of  his  coat  as  a  pro- 
found inspiration  seized  him  after  he  had  dressed 
for  dinner.  Philip  gave  a  slightly  iced  negative  to 
Nellie's  inquiry  whether  he  was  to  join  this  pilgrim- 
age. 

Mr.  Mainwaring  did  all  the  usual  things.  He 
clapped  his  hand  on  Peter's  shoulder  when  the  intro- 
ductions had  been  made,  and  hoped,  with  a  stately 
bow,  that  his  boy  had  been  behaving  himself.  He 
waved  his  hand  when  Mrs.  Wardour  pronounced  the 
first  act  "very  interesting,"  and  recognized  a  fellow 
artist.  Before  ten  minutes  were  over  Mrs.  Wardour 
was  committed  to  look  in  next  afternoon  and  see 


114  PETEK 

"his  few  poor  efforts."  Then  he  became  more  con- 
fidential and  whispery. 

"A  marvellous,  an  incomparable  type!"  he  said, 
looking  at  Silvia,  and  back  again  at  her  mother. 
"Who  has  had  the  felicity,  the  difficult  felicity  of 
painting  that  glorious  head?  No  one?  I  am  aston- 
ished. I  would  be  shocked  if  I  were  capable  of  so 
bourgeois  an  emotion.    H'm!" 

Beyond  a  visit  to  the  private  view  of  the  Royal 
Academy,  Mrs.  Wardour  had  not  penetrated  into 
pictorial  circles,  and  faintly,  through  the  impression, 
volubly  audible,  of  Silvia  and  Nellie  talking  to- 
gether, Peter  heard  his  father  leading  up  to  the 
series  of  war-cartoons  suitable  for  mural  decoration. 
As  regards  that,  he  went  walking  in  the  wet  woods, 
as  aloof  from  his  father  as  from  any  other  mag- 
nificent self-advertiser.  He  had  heard  Mrs.  Ward- 
our's  promise  to  go  to  the  studio  next  day  and  to 
bring  Silvia,  and  he  thought  that  very  probably  the 
relations  of  Great  Britain  with  foreign  countries 
might  struggle  through  a  free  hour  without  his  co- 
operation. Meantime  Nellie  seemed  to  be  talking 
secrets  to  Silvia,  and  he  sat,  nursing  his  knee,  a 
little  aloof  from  either  group.  Presently  Nellie  would 
go  back  to  her  seat  in  the  stalls,  and  his  father  would 
do  the  same,  and  then  he  would  hitch  his  chair  a 
little  forward  again.    .    .    . 

People  began  to  troop  back  into  the  stalls;  obvi- 
ously a  bell  had  rung  announcing  the  imminence  of 
the  second  act.  Nellie  recognized  that,  and  got  up. 
As  yet  she  had  barely  spoken  to  him. 

"I  must  get  back  to  my  Philip,"  she  said  very 
properly.    "Good-night,  darling  Silvia." 

Peter  had  gone  to  open  the  door  for  them. 

"Come  to  the  flat,  Peter,"  she  said,  without  turn- 


PETER  115 

ing  her  head,  as  she  passed  him.    "I  shall  go  straight 
home." 

The  words  were  just  dropped  from  her,  as  if  by 
accident  or  inadvertence,  but  the  moment  she  had 
spoken  them  she  knew  that  this  had  been  in  the 
main  the  object  of  her  visit  to  the  box:  it  was  this 
which  she  had  primarily  wanted.  The  merest  hint 
of  an  affirmative  nod  on  Peter's  part  was  sufficient 
answer. 

The  play  came  to  its  happy  concluding  treacliness, 
and  they  went  out.  Philip  and  Nellie,  of  course, 
were  among  the  first  into  the  vestibule,  where  he 
instantly  caught  his  footman's  eye.  The  Wardour 
group  must  have  left  their  box  slightly  before  the 
end,  for  Peter  was  seeing  them  into  their  motor, 
thanking  Mrs.  Wardour  for  '"such  an  awfully  nice 
evening,"  and  excusing  himself  from  being  given  a 
lift,  as  after  a  day  in  the  office  he  liked  walking 
home — yes,  all  the  way  to  South  Kensington.  How 
nice  it  would  be  to  see  Mrs.  Wardour  at  his  father's 
house  next  day.  ...  He  lingered  a  moment  on 
the  pavement,  and  as  Nellie  passed  him  on  her  way 
to  the  motor,  just  nodded  again,  without  seeming  to 
see  her. 

Philip's  first  concern,  as  they  slid  off  into  the 
traffic,  was  that  there  should  be  air  but  no  draught 
for  Nellie.  Perhaps  if  he  put  her  window  quite  up 
and  his  half  down.  .  .  .  Was  that  comfortable? 
And  a  match  for  her  cigarette?  After  which  he 
slipped  her  hand  into  his,  and  after  a  moment's 
delay  she  returned  the  pressure. 

In  a  flash  of  general,  comprehensive  conscious- 
ness Nellie  was  aware  how  comfortable  and  well- 
ordered  the  whole  evening  had  been,  and  realized 
that  all  days,  evenings  and  mornings  and  afternoons 


116  PETER 

alike,  would  to  the  end  of  life,  owing  to  the  very 
ample  "settlements"  which  she  understood  to  have 
been  made,  be  padded  and  cushioned  like  this.  She 
was  conscious  at  the  same  moment  that  her  appre- 
ciation of  that  lacked  acuteness;  she  would  just  as 
soon,  to  take  an  example,  be  walking  with  Peter 
along  the  pavements,  where  nobody  cared  if  she  felt 
a  draught  or  not,  as  be  having  it  all  her  own  way  in 
unjostled  progress.  .  .  .  The  flash  of  this  percep- 
tion was  instantaneous,  measured  only  by  that  mo- 
ment's delay  in  response  to  Philip's  hand,  for  he 
instantly  began  to  tick  again,  as  she  put  it  to  her- 
self, a  pleasant  tick,  a  good,  reliable,  firm  tick. 

"A  charming  play,  was  it  not,  dear?"  said  he. 
"And  that  delicious  humour  of  his." 

Well,  if  Nellie  was  going  to  be  comfortable  all  her 
life,  it  was  only  fair  that  she  should  contribute, 
should  put  her  penny  into  the  placid  bag. 

"Delicious,"  she  said.  "I  am  sure  it  will  have  a 
great  success.  And  how  interesting  to  be  there  on 
the  first  night." 

She  broke  off  suddenly,  and  clasped  Philip's  arm. 

"Ah — we  nearly  ran  over  that  man,"  she  cried. 

Philip  remained  quite  calm.  He  would  obviously 
be  an  admirable  companion  in  a  shipwreck  or  a 
thunderstorm  or  a  railway  accident.  This  was,  de- 
lightfully, a  new  point  about  him,  and  Nellie  found, 
on  the  discovery  of  it,  that  she  must  have  been 
collecting  his  good  points,  for  with  the  collector's 
zeal  she  hastened  to  net  it  and  add  it  to  her  speci- 
mens. 

He  pressed  the  hand  that  she  had  laid  on  his  arm, 
and  looked  out  of  the  window  which  he  had  opened 
on  his  side  of  the  motor. 

"My  dear,  there  is  nothing  to  be  alarmed  about," 


PETER  117 

he  said.  "The  man  is  quite  safe,  and  has  not  forgot- 
ten his  usual  vocabulary.  You  need  never  be  afraid 
with  Logan;  he  is  the  most  careful  of  drivers,  and 
has  an  extraordinary  command  of  the  brakes." 

Nellie  collected  this  new  genus  Philip ;  sub-species 
Logan.    It  added  a  little  bit  to  the  completeness. 

''Logan  is  quite  trustworthy,"  he  went  on;  "you 
need  never  have  a  moment's  qualm  when  he  is  on  the 
box.  We  were  discussing  the  play.  I  should  like  to 
see  it  again.  Does  not  that  strike  you  as  the  true 
criterion  as  to  whether  you  have  essentially  enjoyed 
a  play?  If  there  is  onlj^  mere  glitter,  one  does  not 
want  to  repeat  the  experience.  But  there  w^as  gold, 
I  thought,  this  evening." 

He  was  silent  a  moment,  patting  her  hand,  and 
Nellie  divined  his  mind  with  a  rather  terrible  dis- 
tinctness. She  had  been  very  considerably  agitated 
for  that  moment,  and  he  assumed  (how  wisely  and 
how  consciously)  a  complete  oblivion  of  that.  The 
best  method  of  reassuring  her  after  the  little  testi- 
monial to  Logan  was  to  be  unaware  of  any  fluttering 
incident.  A  manly  calm  was  the  eflScient  medicine 
for  feminine  alarm.  He  went  on  talking  about  the 
play  as  if  nothing  agitating  had  occurred.    .    .    . 

Swiftly  as  the  car  slid  down  Piccadilly  Nellie's 
brain  was  just  a  little  in  advance  of  it,  and  before 
it  slowed  up  at  the  house  of  flats  she  was  mentally 
on  the  doorstep.  Earlier  in  the  evening  she  had 
contemplated  Philip's  admiring  ascent  with  her  in 
the  lift,  her  own  surprised  recollection,  on  their 
emergence,  that  her  mother  would  not  yet  be  in. 
But  now  that  picture  had  been  whisked  off  the  screen 
altogether;  there  would  be  no  ascent  with  Philip, 
no  sudden  remembrance  of  her  mother's  absence. 
A  subsequent  engagement,  not  so  conventional,  had 


118  PETER 

been  proposed  by  her  and  assented  to  with  a  nod 
so  imperceptible  that  it  had  been  repeated. 

Philip  had  so  often  spent  a  final  half-hour  like 
this,  that,  as  the  motor  stopped,  he  almost  as- 
sumed it. 

"And  may  I  come  up  for  a  few  minutes?"  he 
asked. 

She  laid  her  hand  on  his  shoulder  as  if  to  presa 
him  back  on  to  his  seat. 

"Don't  think  it  horrid  of  me,  dear,"  she  said,  "if 
I  say  'no.'  I  am  a  little  tired,  do  you  think?  But 
what  a  lovely  evening  we  have  had.  You  come  and 
fetch  me  in  the  morning,  don't  you?  Good-night, 
my  dear." 

The  most  ardent  of  lovers  could  hardly  have  in- 
sisted, after  this  little  collection  of  sentences,  each 
unmistakably  clinking  with  some  sort  of  final  "ring," 
and  it  was  out  of  the  question  for  Philip  to  repeat 
a  request  which,  in  any  case,  had  habit  rather  than 
craving  to  back  it.  He  would  certainly  have  liked 
to  sit  with  Nellie  and  her  mother — so  he  supposed — 
for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  discuss  the  play  a  little 
more,  quietly  sun  himself,  contentedly  basking  in 
Nellie's  presence,  and  consider  himself  a  very  for- 
tunate fellow ;  but  if  she  was  a  little  tired,  it  would 
have  been  unthinkably  intrusive  to  beg  her  to  take 
a  part  and  let  him  take  a  part  in  a  seance  that  she 
had  no  wish  for.  But  she  lingered  a  moment  yet 
in  order  to  give  no  impression  of  being  in  any  hurry; 
then,  forbidding  him  to  get  out  of  the  motor,  she 
disappeared,  with  a  final  gesture  as  of  but  a  short 
separation,  into  the  house. 

Her  mother,  as  Nellie  knew  would  be  the  case,  had 
not  yet  returned  from  her  card-party,  nor  would  she 


PETER  119 

be  likely  to  do  so  for  a  full  hour  yet,  and  her  absence, 
in  relation  to  the  visitor  she  now  expected,  took  for 
itself  a  totally  different  aspect.  She  had  limitless 
opportunities  and  facilities  for  a  tete-a-tete  with 
Philip,  and  her  mother's  absence,  if  it  had  been  he 
who  had  come  admiringly  up  with  her  as  she  man- 
aged the  lift,  would  in  no  way  have  been  a  special, 
even  a  desirable,  condition.  She  and  Philip  were 
so  often  alone  together,  and,  before  many  days  were 
passed,  would  be  so  exclusively  alone  together,  that 
the  gain  of  another  such  hour  was,  frankly,  quite 
imponderable.  But  for  the  last  fortnight  she  had 
scarcely  had  a  private  word  with  Peter,  and  what- 
ever it  was  that  she  had  to  say  to  him  in  this  visit 
she  had  bidden  him  to,  and  whatever  he  had  to 
say  to  her  (that  he  had  something  to  say  was  prob- 
able from  his  reiterated  acceptance  of  her  request), 
it  was  quite  certain  that  these  things  could  not  be 
satisfactorily  said,  even,  perhaps,  said  at  all,  before 
any  audience  whatever. 

Nellie  had  no  definite  knowledge,  in  any  detail, 
of  even  her  own  contribution  to  the  coming  inter- 
view; all  that  she  knew  was  that  when,  half  an  hour 
later  or  an  hour  later,  she  would  click  the  door  on 
his  departure,  she  must  somehow  have  looked 
minutely,  with  his  eyes  to  help  her,  at  the  antagon- 
ism which  had  so  odiously  flourished.  She  intensely 
hoped  that  it  could  be  rooted  up  altogether  and  put 
on  to  the  rubbish  heap  of  mistakes  and  misapprehen- 
sions ;  but  whether  her  hope  had  much  of  the  lumin- 
osity of  faith  about  it  was  not  so  certain.  Too  much 
depended  on  what  he  had  to  tell  her,  and  she  did 
not  fall  into  the  error  of  forecasting  the  upshot 
before  she  knew  what  contribution  he  was  to  make 
towards  the  preliminary  process.    .    .    .    Then,  with 


120  PETER 

an  internal  vibration — partly  of  suspense,  partly, 
she  admitted,  of  eager  anticipation — she  heard  the 
faint  tingle  of  the  electric  bell.  The  servants,  no 
doubt,  had  gone  to  bed,  and  she  went  to  the  door 
herself. 

''Hullo!"  said  Peter. 

He  stood  there  a  moment,  after  the  door  wag 
opened,  without  moving,  his  eyes  agleam,  and  a 
smile  hovering  over  his  mouth.  Often  and  often 
had  they  met  in  precisely  similar  fashion,  he,  as  he 
passed  the  door  on  his  way  home,  giving  one  dis- 
creet little  ring,  which  Nellie  would  answer  if  she 
felt  disposed  to  see  him.  Sometimes  her  mother 
would  be  in ;  but  of tener,  if  in,  she  had  gone  to  bed, 
and  the  two  would  sit  over  the  fire,  or,  on  hot  nights, 
seek  the  window-seat  and  spend  an  hour  of  desultory 
intimacy,  as  two  boys  might,  or  two  girls.  But  to- 
night there  was  some  little  effervescent  quality 
added  to  the  meeting;  the  spice  that  a  combined 
manoeuvre,  however  innocent,  brought  with  it.  Both 
realized,  too,  that  a  talk,  which  must  attempt  to 
readjust  their  old  relations  or  fit  them  into  the 
changed  conditions,  lay  ahead,  and,  for  the  moment, 
each  brought  gaiety  and  goodwill  to  the  task.  The 
best  evidence  for  that  was  the  assumption  of  the 
old  relations  pending  the  readjustment.    .    .    . 

"Peter!  How  lovely  of  you!"  she  said.  "Come 
in^' 

"Is  she  in?"  he  asked,  putting  down  his  coat  and 
hat. 

"Mother?  No;  she's  at  a  harpy  party.  Four 
women  rooking  each  other  at  bridge.  They'll  all  be 
trembling  and  being  frightfully  polite  by  this  time. 
Peter,  bring  your  hat  and  coat  in  with  you.     If 


PETER  121 

mother  sees  them  there  she  will  think  Philip's  here 
and  will  come  in  to  sit  with  us." 

"And  if  she  thought  they  were  mine " 

"She  would  come  in  twice.  But  if  there  are  no 
signs  of  anybody  she  will  probably  go  to  bed  and 
not  interrupt  us." 

The  night  was  hot,  with  a  thundery,  overcast  sky, 
and  they  sat  together  again  in  the  window-seat.  A 
hundred  feet  below  the  street  was  roaring  and  rolling 
along,  thick  with  the  discharge  from  theatres  and 
music  halls. 

"The  clever  one!  And  how  did  you  get  rid  of 
Philip?"  asked  Peter. 

"Lied,  darling,"  said  Nellie,  succinctly. 

"Did  you,  indeed?  Nellie,  I  don't  think  you're 
getting  on  very  well  with  your  determination  to  be 
conventional." 

Nellie  blew  reproach  at  him  in  the  shape  of  a 
ragged  smoke  ring. 

"I  never  heard  anything  so  unjust,"  she  said. 
"Oh,  Peter,  it  was  just  here  we  sat  when  I  told  you 
I  was  going  to  be  quite  conventional.  Wasn't  it? 
Don't  say  you  don't  remember.  Well,  I'm  being  the 
model  of  conventionality." 

"Pleasant,  is  it?"  asked  Peter,  in  a  wonderfully 
neutral  voice.  He  did  not  yet  quite  know  why  Nellie 
had  summoned  him  here,  and  he  was  greatly  aloof 
still. 

"Don't  make  slightly  acid  comments,"  said  she, 
"about  conventionality.  It's  a  fortnight,  more  than 
a  fortnight,  since  I  saw  you  last.  Oh,  I  don't  count 
balls  and  that  sort  of  thing.  Your  friends  are  in- 
visible at  balls.  You  can  only  see  your  acquaint- 
ances. What's  the  use  of  just  seeing  a  friend?  You've 
got  to  be  alone  with  a  friend  in  order  to  see  him." 


122  PETER 

Nellie  was  still  unaware  of  what  course  she  was 
really  meaning  to  steer.  It  was  to  be  a  safe  course, 
anyhow,  avoiding  shoals,  and  avoiding  icebergs. 
Just  at  present  Peter  was  making  himself  an  iceberg. 
She  went  on,  talking  rapidly  and  quite  naturally, 
with  a  view  to  bringing  Peter  out  of  his  frozen  aloof- 
ness. 

"But  my  scheme  for  conventionality  never  went 
so  far  as  to  exclude  my  seeing  my  friends  alto- 
gether," she  said.  "And  if,  in  order  to  see  a  par- 
ticular friend  I  have  to  tell  lies  to  one  person  and — 
and  tell  the  other  not  to  leave  his  coat  in  the  hall, 
that's  not  my  fault.  It's  mother's  fault  for  not  hav- 
ing gone  to  bed  yet;  it's  Philip's  fault  for  proposing 
to  drop  in." 

Peter's  smile  hovered  over  his  face  again,  not  quite 
breaking  through. 

"Brutes,"  he  said.     "Perfect  brutes." 

"I'm  not  sure  that  you  aren't  the  worst  of  them 
all,"  remarked  Nellie. 

His  smile  broke  through  at  that,  and  he  laughed. 

"You  may  be  quite  sure  I'm  not  a  brute,"  he  said. 
"But  I  should  like  to  know  why  you  think  so." 

Nellie  was  sincere  enough  in  her  desire  to  re- 
establish a  genuine,  friendly  relationship  with  him 
again.  At  present  their  grip  on  each  other  was 
clogged  and  rusted.  If  this  rather  unconventional 
meeting  was  to  be  of  any  use  (what  use  she  did  not 
clearly  define),  the  first  essential  was  to  wipe  the 
wheels  clean. 

"You  know  perfectly  well,"  she  said.  "Ever  since 
my  engagement  you  have  taken  yourself  completely 
away.  You  have  shut  yourself  up.  You  have  bolted 
your  windows  and  barred  your  doors  to  me.  Haven't 
you?" 


PETER  123 

Peter  weighed  this  accusation.  It  might  possibly 
be  true;  but  it  contained  an  arguable  point,  which 
was  easy  to  state. 

"I  never  bolted  the  windows  and  barred  the 
doors,"  he  said.  "It  was  you  who  did  that.  I  didn't 
arrange  that  you  should  marry  Philip.  That's  what 
shut  me  up,  if  you  choose  to  put  it  like  that.  I  told 
you  at  the  time  that  our  relations  must  be  changed." 

She  shook  her  head. 

"No  relations  that  ever  existed  between  us  need 
have  been  changed,"  she  said.  ''You  speak  as  if  we 
had  been  in  love  with  each  other." 

*'Not  at  all.  We  never  were  in  love  with  each 
other ;  that  we  both  know.    But " 

"What  then?"  she  asked. 

"I'll  take  your  simile,"  he  said.  "My  windows 
and  doors  were  open  to  you?  I  might  easily  have 
fallen  in  love  with  you,  or,  for  that  matter,  you  with 
me.  Our  relationship,  and  the  possibilities  it  held, 
were  just  those  of  open  doors  and  windows.  Then 
you  came  round  and  shut  me  up.  And  Philip  drew 
the  curtains." 

She  took  this  in  and  turned  it  about  before  she 
answered. 

"By  which  you  mean,"  she  said,  "that  whatever 
our  relationship  might  have  ripened  into,  I  nipped 
it  off — like  a  frost." 

"Yes,"  said  he.    "A  latish  frost." 

She  got  up  and  moved  about  the  room,  patting  a 
cushion  here  and  setting  a  chair  straight  there. 
Peter  did  not  move;  he  did  not  even  turn  his  head; 
but  he  was  quite  aware  of  her  pondering  restless- 
ness. He  was  aware,  too,  that  so  long  as  he  held 
his  tongue  he  had  the  whip-hand.  The  evidence  for 
that  was  soon  apparent. 


124  PETER 

"I  didn't  know  that  my  engagement  would  have 
that  effect,"  she  said.  "I  think  it  is  unreasonable 
that  it  should  have  that  effect.  If  you  had  been  in 
love  with  me  it  would  have  been  different;  in  that 
case  I  could  have  understood  it.  But,  as  it  was, 
why  should  it  have  made  any  change  in  our  friend- 
ship?" 

"What's  the  use  of  asking  me?"  said  Peter,  with 
a  sudden  touch  of  irritation.  "I  can't  tell  you  why. 
I  don't  knoiv  the  'why'  of  anything  under  the  sun. 
But  put  it  the  other  way  about.  Suppose  that  it  had 
been  I  who  had  got  engaged  to  some  girl,  wouldn't 
that  have  made  any  change  in  your  sense  of  our 
friendship?" 

Peter  had  spread  himself  a  little  over  the  window- 
seat  when  she  got  up.  Now  when  she  came  back  to 
her  old  seat  she  pushed  his  encroaching  knee  aside. 

"That's  not  the  same  thing,"  she  said.  "A  girl 
can't  be  a  very  intimate  friend  of  a  married  man  in 
the  same  way  that  a  man  can  be  a  very  intimate 
friend  of  a  mamed  woman." 

"I  won't  ask  why,"  said  Peter  gently,  "because 
I'm  aware  that  you  don't  know." 

"What  I  say  is  perfectly  true,  though." 

"Not  in  the  instance  of  you  and  me.  You  knew 
quite  well  that  I  wasn't  going  to  give  myself  a  free 
rein  to  fall  in  love  with  you  after  you  had  settled  to 
marry  someone  else.  Besides,  if  you  come  to  think 
of  it,  a  man  dangling  after  a  married  woman  is  just 
as  ridiculous  as  a  girl  dangling  after  a  married  man. 
I  don't  see  why  a  man  shouldn't  be  allowed  to  retain 
his  self-respect  as  much  as  a  woman." 

Though,  as  far  as  the  spoken  word  went,  they  had 
arrived  at  no  agreement,  no  compromise  even  on 
which  agreement  could  be  based,  they  both  felt  that 


PETER  125 

somehow  in  the  region  of  unspoken  treaties  the 
ground  had  been  cleared.  Though  the  wheels  did 
not  yet  revolve  again,  rust  had  been  wiped  off  them. 
And  in  Peter's  next  speech  the  scouring  of  the  wash- 
leather  was  busy. 

"You  mustn't  think  that  I  don't  regret  what  we're 
suffering  under,  Nellie,"  he  said.  "I  regret  it  most 
awfully.  I've  been  saying,  and  I  stick  to  it  still,  that 
you  are  responsible  for  it.  It  was  you  who  closed 
my  windows  and  bolted  my  doors.  It  would  be 
simply  silly  of  me  to  pretend  that  I  was  broken- 
hearted about  it,  for  that  would  imply  that  I  had 
been  or  was  in  love  with  you.  But  that  doesn't 
prevent  my  being  sorry,  or  my  missing,  which  I 
acutely  do,  our  old  relationship.  I  don't  know  if  it's 
any  use  trying  to  recapture  it.  Trying,'  probably, 
hasn't  much  effect  on  what  you  feel.  It's  no  use 
'trying'  to  feel  hot  if  you  happen  to  feel  cold,  or 
trying  to  feel  ill  when  you  do  feel  well " 

"My  dear,  it  makes  the  whole  difference,"  said 
Nellie  quickly.  "Will  you  try  to — to  feel  yourself 
back  in  your  relationship  with  me?  I  want  it,  too, 
Peter." 

She  pulled  back  his  encroaching  knee  which  just 
now  she  had  pushed  away  and  kept  her  hand  on  it. 
The  very  fact  that  this  triviality  was  so  instinctive 
constituted  the  significance  of  it. 

"I  hadn't  reckoned  with  losing  you,"  she  went  on. 
"No,  I  don't  excuse  myself  or  account  for  myself. 
Probably  I  should  have  done  just  the  same  if  I  had 
reckoned  with  it.  Probably,  if  it  was  all  to  do  again 
now,  I  should  do  the  same.  Don't  let  us  labour  the 
point,  if  you'll  try,  that's  all  I  ask.  I'll  try,  too,  if 
that  will  be  of  any  use.  I  put  my  nose  in  the  air  just 
as  much  as  you  did,  as  if  my  nose  wasn't  sufficiently 


126  PETER 

in  the  air  already.  But  it  always  turns  up  at  the 
end." 

"Not  to  matter;  don't  mention  it,"  said  Peter. 

"That's  the  old  style,  Peter,"  she  said.  "Keep  it 
up;  run  with  it  till  it  works  on  its  own  account. 
Motorcycle,  you  know." 

They  were  looking  at  each  other  now  with  some- 
thing of  the  alert  unconsciousness  of  two  old  friends 
alone  together.  But  certainly  the  machine  required 
running  with  at  present. 

"They're  heavy  things  to  push  when  they  won't 
get  going,"  said  he. 

"How  odious  you  are!" 

"Hurrah  for  that  word!"  said  Peter. 

"Why?" 

"I  wonder  how  often  we  have  told  each  other  we 
were  odious." 

NeUie  was  silent,  and  in  that  moment's  pause 
Peter  was  conscious  that,  real  no  doubt,  as  had  been 
her  desire  to  uproot  the  antagonism  that  had  grown 
up  between  them,  that  process  had  been  no  more 
than  preliminary  to  something  that  should  follow. 
The  ground  had  to  be  cleared  first,  but  the  clearing 
of  the  ground  was  not  her  ultimate  objective.  The 
moment  he  perceived  that  at  all,  he  saw  how  obvious 
it  was;  how  her  appearance  suddenly  in  Mrs. 
Wardour's  box  that  evening  gave  a  clue  to  the  nature 
of  the  further  development.  Then,  quick  as  an 
echo,  she  began  to  reproduce  the  thought  in  his 
mind. 

"Let's  pick  up  the  thread  again,"  she  said.  "I 
can  give  you  my  weavings  very  simply.  Trousseau, 
Philip;  Philip,  trousseau.  How  lucky  men  are! 
When  a  man  is  going  to  be  married  he  doesn't  have 


PETER  127 

to  spend  his  days  in  buying  things.  He  doesn't  have 
to  buy  anything." 

"Wedding-ring,"  said  Peter,  in  parenthesis. 

"Yes;  but  you  can't  have  occupied  yourself  with 
that  unless  you  have  had  a  private  marriage  behind 
the  locked  doors  and  curtained  windows.  We  were 
telling  each  other  what  we  had  been  doing  in  this 
long  interval.    It  was  your  turn." 

"Oh,  usual  things,"  said  he.  "Foreign  Office,  din- 
ner; breakfast,  Foreign  Office." 

"And  how's  May  Trentham?"  asked  Nellie,  wheel- 
ing in  smaller  circles  round  this  objective.  "You've 
left  her  out;  she  wouldn't  like  that." 

"She  left  me  out  to-night,"  said  Peter,  "She  had 
that  immense  box  for  the  play  and  never  asked  me 
to  it." 

Nellie  folded  her  wings  and  dropped. 

"But  you  got  there  all  right,"  she  said.  "She  saw 
you,  too,  sitting  with  Mrs.  Wardour,  who  hasn't 
asked  her  to  the  party  for  the  Russian  ballet.  Blood, 
toy  dear;  there'll  be  blood  over  that.  Do  you  know, 
I  think  Silvia  is  one  of  the  most  attractive  girls  I 
have  ever  seen." 

As  she  spoke  there  came  from  outside  the  tingle 
of  the  front  door  bell.  Nellie  got  up  with  a  finger  on 
her  lip. 

"Who  on  earth  can  that  be?"  she  whispered. 

"It  may  be  anybody,"  said  Peter,  very  prudently. 
"You  can't  tell  till  you  go  and  see.  Perhaps  it's 
Philip ;  we  may  have  got  hold  of  each  other's  hats  by 
mistake,  and  he's  come  here " 

Nellie  suppressed  a  laugh. 

"Probably  mother,"  she  said.  "She  forgets  her 
latchkey  when  she  thinks  she'll  be  late  home.     I 


128  PETER 

shan't  say  vou're  here,  or  she'd  come  in  and  spoil  our 
talk." 

"Oh,  what  a  tangled "  began  Peter. 

Nellie  took  the  additional  precaution  of  turning 
out  the  lights  in  the  room  where  they  were  sitting 
and  leaving  the  door  open.  Close  outside  was  the 
entrance  door  from  the  stairs  into  the  flat,  and  Peter, 
sitting  in  the  window-seat,  heard  with  an  amusement 
that  dimpled  his  cheeks  Nellie's  unhesitating  ac- 
count of  herself.  It  appeared  that  she  had  just  come 
in  and  was  just  going  to  bed;  she  had  already  put 
out  the  lights  in  the  sitting-room.  There  followed 
a  triumphant  announcement  of  her  mother's  win- 
nings, an  affectionate  good  night,  and  the  closing  of 
a  door  down  the  passage.  Sitting  there  in  the  dark 
Peter  drew  the  conclusion  that  Nellie  put  a  high 
prtemium  on  the  pursuit  of  the  conversation  in 
which,  as  he  infallibly  conjectured,  she  had  just  got 
down  to  the  bone.  She  would  scarcely,  for  the 
aesthetic  delight  in  tortuosity,  have  concealed  the 
fact  that  he  had  dropped  in,  as  he  had  done  a 
hundred  times  before,  for  a  few  minutes'  chat  on  his 
way  home.  She  wanted  to  talk  about  Silvia.  For 
his  part  he  was  perfectly  ready  to  talk  about  Silvia. 

Just  before  the  closing  of  the  door,  which  must 
certainly  be  that  of  Mrs.  Heaton's  bedroom,  Nellie 
had  said:  "I'll  put  out  the  lights;  good  night,  dear. 
What  a  lovely  last  rubber,"  and  Peter,  feeling  his 
way,  so  to  speak,  into  Nellie's  mind  by  the  analogy 
of  his  own,  knew  exactly  what  she  was  doing.  In  a 
moment  now  there  would  be  the  click  of  the  extin- 
guished light  in  the  haU,  and  she  would  very  softly 
rustle  back  in  the  dark  into  the  room  where  he  was 
sitting,  close  the  door  of  that,  and  then,  perhaps, 
turn  on  the  light  inside  again,  or,  as  likely  as  not, 


PETER  129 

shuffle  back  into  the  window-seat.  So  often  had  they 
sat  there  talking  in  the  dark. 

And  as  he  waited  for  those  five  or  ten  seconds  to 
pass,  he  was  invaded  by  a  sense  of  passionate  re- 
bellion against  himself.  There  was  the  girl,  whom 
for  the  last  two  years  he  had  been  interested  in, 
fond  of  to  the  practical  exclusion  of  anyone  else,  and 
now,  at  this  moment  she,  engaged  to  a  man  whom 
she  did  not  ever  so  remotely  love,  was  presently 
stealing  back,  on  the  eve  of  her  marriage,  to  spend 
a  more  than  midnight  hour  with  him.  He  ought  to 
have  been  a  balloon,  rising  into  some  stratum  of 
sunlight  high  above  the  twi-lit  earth,  and  instead  he 
was  bumping  heavily  over  uneven  ground,  quite 
unable  to  get  into  the  air.  No  matter  what  the 
ballast  of  worldly  consideration  he  threw  out,  he 
could  not  feel  himself  lifting,  and  Nellie,  when  she 
came  back,  would  only  add  to  the  weight. 

His  expectations  were  ruthlessly,  even  ruefully 
fulfilled.  She  stole  in,  invisible  in  the  darkened 
oblong  of  the  door,  closed  it,  and  without  turning  up 
the  light,  established  herself  in  the  window-seat 
again. 

"Mother's  gone  to  her  room,"  she  said.  "I  did  it 
so  cleverly,  Peter.    I  said  I  had  just  come  in " 

"I  know;  I  heard,"  said  Peter.    "Brilliant.". 

"Wasn't  it?  Now  we  can  talk  without  any  fear 
of  interruption.  Where  had  we  got  to?  Oh,  I 
know.  I  think  Silvia  is  perfectly  fascinating.  Don't 
you?" 

Here  was  the  bumping  process,  the  added  weight. 
Eager  though  Nellie  had  been  to  re-establish  old 
relations  between  herself  and  him,  there  was  a 
livelier  eagerness  to  ascertain  anything  about  new 
relations  between  himself  and  Silvia.    If  Nellie,  as 


130  PETER 

he  had  affirmed,  had  shut  his  windows  and  bolted  his 
doors  for  him,  he  now  made  a  tour  of  the  secure 
premises  to  see  that  she  had  done  her  work 
thoroughly. 

"I  don't  know  if  I  should  say  perfectly  fascin- 
ating," he  said, 

"But  you  like  her,  don't  you?" 

"Extremely,  but " 

Nellie  waited  to  hear  the  qualification.  She  liked 
the  fact  that  there  was  a  qualification,  though  at 
present  she  did  not  know  what  it  was.  As  nothing 
further  came,  she  spoke  again,  quite  in  the  old 
style. 

"Oh,  it's  so  rude  to  say,  'but,'  and  then  not  go  on," 
she  said. 

Peter  jerked  back  his  head. 

"Let  me  be  polite,  then,"  he  said.  "One  can  always 
observe  the  small  decencies  of  life.  What  I  nearly 
said  was:  'But  I'm  not  in  love  with  her.'  I  stopped 
myself,  Nellie,  if  you  want  to  know,  because  it 
seemed  to  me  very  vividly  that  it  wasn't  your  busi- 
ness." 

There  was  an  illumination  cast  on  to  her  face 
from  the  street  lamps  from  below.  To  his  intense 
surprise  he  saw  that  her  eyes,  wide  and  unfocused, 
grew  suddenly  dim. 

"That's  just  what  I,  too,  am  beginning  to  realize," 
she  said.  "Whatever  you  do  now  is  none  of  my 
business.  I've  got  a  separate  establishment.  I'm 
bound  to  say  that  you  have  quite  realized  that. 
You  haven't  asked  me  a  single  question  about  what 
goes  on  in  mine.  It  doesn't  concern  you  any  more; 
therefore,  you  don't  care.  I  shall  learn  to  respect 
your  privacy,  too,  Peter.  Another  snub  or  so  will 
teach  me." 


PETER  131 

"That's  nonsense!"  he  said  quickly. 

*Tt  isn't  nonsense.  You  treat  me  like  a  stranger 
because  I  happen  to  be  marrying  someone  else.  If 
you  had  been  in  love  with  me " 

''We've  had  that  already,"  said  Peter. 

'Then  listen  to  it  this  time.  You've  absolutely 
been  turning  your  back  on  me.  You  are  piqued — 
horrid  word — because  I  don't  want  to  remain  an  old 
maid  for  your  sake.  Mayn't  I  feel  interested  in  you 
without  your  resenting  it?  You  object  to  my  marry- 
ing Philip  when  you  could  have  made  it  perfectly 
clear " 

"WTiat  could  I  have  made  clear?"  he  asked. 

"You  could  have  made  yourself  indispensable  to 
me,"  she  said.  "A  single  further  turn  of  the 
screw " 

Again  she  broke  off. 

"No,  I'm  wronging  you,"  she  said.  "That  final 
turn  of  the  screw  must  be  made  mutually.  It  never 
came  to  us,  though  I  was  there,  wasn't  I,  with  my 
screwdriver,  and  you  with  yours?  It  just  didn't 
happen.  Let's  make  the  best  of  what  remains.  A 
good  deal  remains  after  all.  We  have  everything 
that  is  of  value  between  us,  except  that  final  turn 
of  the  screw.  Good  heavens,  Peter,  how  I  wish  I 
adored  you!  I  do  all  but  that.  And  you  do  the 
same  for  me,  darling,  when  all  is  said  and  done.  If 
only  you  were  masterful  and  masculine,  or  if  only 
I  was.  the  thing  would  be  solved.  As  it  is,  we  are 
like  two  oysters  in  the  flow  of  the  tide,  just  gaping 
at  each  other." 

Nellie's  ultimate  objective,  unless  Peter  had  com- 
pletely misunderstood  her, 'had  sunk  out  of  sight  for 
him. 

"And  all  the  time  the  tide  is  flowing,"  he  said; 


132  PETER 

"that's  so  maddening  of  it.  I  mean  that  the  days 
and  weeks  and  months  are  passing,  and  one  doesn't 
even  think,  still  less  does  one  feel;  one  only  exists. 
I  am  an  oyster,  it's  quite  true.  But  I  don't  make 
pearls.  Pearls,  I  believe,  are  only  pieces  of  grit 
which  the  clever  oyster  covers  up  with  iridescent 
stuff.  All  that  stuff  comes  from  the  oyster's  inside, 
somehow.  I  can't  rnake;  I  can't  manufacture  like 
that.  The  clever  oyster  does  it,  or  the  normal  oyster, 
somewhere  in  the  South  Seas.  I  suppose  I'm  a 
northern  oyster — only  meant  to  be  eaten.  Just  to 
be  eaten.  I  really  want  somebody  to  come  along 
and  gobble  me  up.  I'm  nothing  but  a  small  piece  of 
food." 

Nellie  found  herself  hugely  interested  in  this.  It 
gave  her  what  she  wanted  to  know — namely,  Peter's 
own  personal  feelings  as  to  how  he  stood  to  Silvia. 
He  had  defined  it  negatively  when  he  told  her  that 
he  was  not  in  love  with  her;  but  here  was  a  more 
intimate  revelation — namely,  that  of  his  willingness 
to  be  absorbed.  There,  too,  was  the  difference,  vital 
and  essential,  between  herself  and  him,  for  she  never 
contemplated  the  possibility  of  being  absorbed  by 
Philip.  There  would  certainly  be  no  absorption  there 
on  either  side;  he,  so  she  judged,  was  as  little  likely 
to  make  that  surrender  as  she. 

For  a  moment  she  thought  over  what  Peter  had 
said,  instantly  finding  herself  unable  to  accept  it. 

"I  can  imagine  your  being  very  indigestible,"  she 
remarked.  "I  don't  really  think,  nor,  perhaps,  do 
you,  that  you  will  allow  yourself  to  be  assimilated. 
I  can't  imagine  you  giving  up  your  wet  woods." 

**I  shall  always  remain  selfish,  you  mean,"  said  he. 
''Self-centred ;  whatever  you  like  to  call  it." 

She  frowned  over  this. 


PETER  133 

"What  I  suppose  I  really  mean  is  that  I  don't 
understand  you/'  she  said.  And,  getting  up,  she 
fumbled  for  the  switch  of  the  light  by  the  door. 
"Let's  throw  some  light  on  you." 

He  got  up,  too. 

"I  must  go  to  bed,"  he  said.  "It's  any  hour  of 
the  night." 

She  stood  in  front  of  him,  stretching  her  arms, 
which  were  a  little  cramped  with  leaning  on  the 
window-sill,  and  looked  at  him  gravely. 

"You're  going  to  ask  Silvia  to  marry  you,  then?" 
she  said. 

"I  am,  as  soon  as  I  think  she  will  accept  me." 

Nellie  received  this  point-blank.  She  had  fully 
expected  it,  and  now,  when  it  came,  there  was  noth- 
ing in  her  that  ever  so  faintly  winced.  Then  she 
took  two  steps  forward,  put  her  hands  on  his 
shoulders  and  kissed  him. 

"Peter,  darling,  what  good  friends  we've  been," 
she  said,  "and  we'll  carry  all  that  forward  into  the 
future.  There's  no  one  like  you.  That's  just  what 
I  meant  by  kissing  you,  that,  and  to  wish  you  all 
good  luck.  Perhaps  your  son  will  marry  my 
daughter;  wouldn't  that  be  nice;  and  then  we  can 
envy  them  both,  and  be  wildly  jealous.  As  for  ask- 
ing Silvia — well,  what  about  to-morrow?  Perhaps 
it's  rather  late  to  ask  her  to-night." 

He  tiptoed  his  way  out,  and  Nellie  closed  the  door 
very  cautiously  behind  him.  At  that  moment,  when 
she  kissed  him,  she  harl  given  him  all  of  the  very 
best  of  her.  She  exulted  in  having  done  it,  but 
assuredly  virtue  had  gone  out  of  her.  Restless  and 
unquiet  in  her  bed,  she  thought  over  what  was  left 
for  her. 


CHAPTER  VII 

John  Mainwaring  had  prepared  his  studio  for 
the  visit  of  Mrs.  Wardour  and  Silvia  next  day  with 
the  utmost  dramatic  completeness,  employing  for 
their  reception  the  scenery  and  the  setting  which 
suggested  itself  as  being  most  likely  to  impress  and 
astound.  With  this  end  in  view  he  had  littered  the 
room  with  all  possible  properties,  bringing  down 
from  the  attics  stacks  of  his  own  pictures,  which  he 
disposed  in  careless  profusion  round  the  walls. 
Sketch  books  and  paint  boxes  littered  the  tables, 
lay-figures  peeped  from  behind  easels,  robes  trailed 
over  sofa-backs,  and  he,  when  his  visitors  were  an- 
nounced, had  designed  that  he  himself  should  be 
found,  in  his  oldest  velveteen  coat  and  morocco 
slippers,  at  the  top  of  the  step-ladder  which  he  had 
put  into  position  again  in  front  of  the  great  canvas 
representing  Satan  odiously  whispering  to  the  Ger- 
man Emperor.  There,  absorbed  in  his  inspired 
labours,  he  was  to  be  giving  the  last,  the  crowning, 
the  positively  final  terrific  touch  to  it  as  his  visitors 
(and,  as  he  hoped,  his  victims)  entered. 

Since  the  work  had  actually  been  finished  at  least 
a  month  ago,  and  on  that  occasion  had  been  toasted 
in  glasses  of  port  wine  by  himself,  his  wife  and  Peter, 
he  had  thought  it  prudent  to  inform  her  that  more 
last  touches  were  to  be  applied  to  it  again  to-day. 
Visitors,  he  had  added,  were  dropping  in  that  after- 
noon, and  she  would,  no  doubt,  be  sitting  upstairs  in 
the  drawmg-room  when  they  arrived,  with  tea  pre- 

134 


PETER  135 

pared  for  their  refreshment.  When  the  time  came 
he  would  yodel  for  her,  and  she  would  come  down, 
be  presented  to  Mrs.  Wardour  and  her  daughter, 
and  would  scold  him  for  keeping  these  ladies  looking 
at  his  stupid  pictures  instead  of  bringing  them  up  to 
tea.    ... 

Such  was  the  general  idea  of  the  opening  of  a 
manoeuvre  from  which  he,  with  a  quite  incurable 
optimism,  expected  very  gratifying  results.  Peter 
had  already  alluded  to  the  suiprising  dawn  of  Mrs. 
Wardour  on  the  town,  and  he  himself,  at  the  play 
the  night  before,  had  paved  a  way  for  a  commission 
to  execute  a  portrait  of  Silvia.  He  had  no  idea 
whether  or  not  Mrs.  Wardour  inserted  any  of  these 
golden  tentacles  with  which,  like  an  octopus,  she 
appeared  to  be  enveloping  London,  into  the  domain 
of  art,  but  it  was  worth  while  hoping  that  her  sense 
of  completion  would  not  be  satisfied  unless  she  had 
Silvia's  portrait  painted.  That,  so  he  had  ascer- 
tained, had  not  been  done,  and  he  had,  so  to  speak, 
left  a  card  "soliciting  the  favour  of  a  call."  The  call 
certainly  was  to  be  made  that  afternoon,  and  his 
imagination  now,  bit  in  teeth  and  wildly  galloping, 
foresaw  another  possible  commission  in  the  portrait 
of  Mrs.  Wardour  herself.  Perhaps — here  was  the 
rosiest  of  the  summits  yet  in  view — he  might  profit- 
ably dispose  of  that  great  cartoon  which  Mrs. 
Wardour  would  so  soon  be  privileged  to  see  receiving 
its  finishing  touches.  Farther  than  that  his  vision 
did  not  definitely  project  itself,  but  in  sunlit  and 
shining  mists  he  could  vaguely  see  himself  working 
for  all  he  was  worth  (and  for  much  of  what  Mrs. 
Wardour  was  worth)  at  more  of  these  stupendous 
canvases,  and  berthing  each,  as  soon  as  possible,  in 
the  same  remunerative  harbourage. 


136  PETER 

The  ring  at  the  bell  of  the  street  door  warned  him 
to  scamper  up  his  step-ladder,  and  absorb  himself 
in  finishing  touches  at  the  top  of  the  thundercloud 
of  war.  In  due  time  the  studio  door  opened  and 
Burrows,  announcing  his  visitors,  had  to  raise  her 
voice  to  the  pitch  of  a  vendor  of  street-wares  and 
recite  the  names  again  before  she  was  so  fortunate 
as  to  attract  his  attention.  Then  Mr.  Mainwaring 
turned  slowly  round  with  a  dazed  expression  and, 
shading  his  eyes,  perceived  the  expected  presences. 
Then  with  brush  in  one  hand  and  palette  in  the 
other,  he  gave  an  ecstatic  cry  of  welcome  (not  to  be 
confused  with  the  yodelling  summons  for  his  wife), 
and  came  bounding  down  the  step-ladder.  Divest- 
ing himself  of  his  palette  and  brush,  he  held  out 
both  hands. 

*'Ah,  my  dear  friends,"  he  said,  "but  this  is  charm- 
ing. I  am  ashamed  of  myself  to  be  found  in  such 
dishevelment,  but — well,  we  artists  are  like  that,  silly 
donkeys  as  we  are,  and  I  had  forgotten,  for  the  mo- 
ment I  had  forgotten  the  advent  of  my  delightful 
visitors." 

He  held  a  hand  of  each  of  them  for  a  moment, 
with  pressure  and  expression,  and  then  withdrew  his 
left  hand,  holding  it  to  his  forehead. 

"A  finishing  touch,"  he  said.  "I  was  at  that  very 
moment  putting  the  last  touch  of  paint  on  to  my 
canvas.  Let  me  forget  that:  give  me  a  moment  to 
forget  it.    You  are  here,  that  is  the  great  point." 

He  made  a  splendid  obeisance,  and  as  he  recovered 
thrust  back  his  hair,  and  embarked  on  a  period. 

"You  find  me,  dear  Mrs.  Wardour,"  he  said,  "in 
a  moment  of  triumph,  of  jubilation  even.  Little  as 
that  can  possibly  mean  to  others,  this  is  one  of  my 
red  letter  days.    A  moment  ago  my  brush  touched 


PETER  137 

my  canvas  for  the  last  time.  My  picture  is  done,  all 
but  for  the  obscure  initials,  which,  in  vermilion,  I 
shall  humbly  inscribe  in  the  corner.  Would  it,  by 
chance,  be  of  the  smallest  interest  to  you  to  see  that 
little  rite  performed?  I  take  my  brush  then,  I 
squeeze  out  a  morsel  of  paint,  I  trace  those  obscure 
initials." 

No  inspiration  could  have  been  happier.  Mrs. 
Wardour's  eye  was  already  travelling  over  the  huge 
canvas  with  rapture  and  astonishment,  and  it  was 
thrilling  that  she  should  have  come  just  in  time  to 
see  the  artist  testify  in  vermilion  that  this  great 
thing  was  of  his  own  creation.  Naturally  she  could 
not  be  expected  to  know  that  if  she  had  arrived  half 
an  hour  ago,  or  had  not  arrived  for  half  an  hour  to 
come,  she  would  have  been  just  in  time  for  this  cere- 
mony.   She  turned  to  vSilvia. 

"Well,  if  that  isn't  interesting,  Silvia,"  she  said 
(as  if  Silvia  had  denied  it).  "Weren't  we  saying  to 
each  other  as  we  came  along  that  perhaps  we  should 
find  Mr.  Mainwaring  painting?  And  what  a  work 
of  art  too!    My!" 

John  Mainwaring  having  recorded  himself  as 
creator,  became  showman  and  spectator  in  one,  and 
moved  the  step-ladder  aside  so  that  he  should  both 
get  and  give  an  uninterrupted  view.  Then,  losing 
himself  once  more  as  spectator,  he  propped  his  chin 
on  his  hand  and  gazed  at  the  work. 

"Finished!  Finished!"  he  said  with  a  magnificent 
detachment.    "Now  let  us  see  what  we  think  of  it." 

Mrs.  Wardour  gazed,  too,  and  the  more  she  gazed 
the  more  powerful — that  was  exactly  the  word  she 
would  have  used — appeared  the  significance  of  this 
tremendous  presentment.  She  had  no  great  taste  for 
pictures,  but  if  you  were  in  pursuit  of  pictures  (and 


138  PETER 

pictures  had  certainly  been  the  objective  of  this 
expedition),  here  was  what  she  meant  by  a  picture. 
Not  long  before  his  death  her  husband  had 
bought  what  he  called  ''a  picture  or  two,"  destined 
to  adorn  the  walls  of  the  gallery  which  was  so  great 
a  feature  in  the  castellated  residence  which  he  had 
built  on  the  ridge  of  Ashdown  Forest.  It  ran  the 
whole  length  of  the  house,  and  when  complete  as  to 
embellishment,  w^as  to  be  a  lane  of  pictures  hung  on 
red  Spanish  brocade  from  end  to  end.  To  her  mind, 
no  less  than  his,  real  pictures,  true  pictures,  pictures 
worth  looking  at,  were  brightly  (or  sombrely)  col- 
oured illustrations  of  famous  personages,  of  well- 
known  places,  or  told  a  story ;  best  of  all  were  those 
that  told  a  story.  A  few  such  had  already  been 
plucked  and  gathered  there;  there  was  a  very 
splendid  record  of  the  coronation  of  Queen  Victoria, 
the  rock  of  Gibraltar,  with  a  P.  and  0.  steamer  to 
the  left  and  a  sunset  to  the  right,  an  execution  of 
Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  and,  in  lighter  mood,  a 
delicious  immensity  called  "Knights  of  the  Bath," 
in  which  a  small  boy  and  a  large  puppy  shared  a 
sponging-tin.  Here  then  and  now  the  image  of  the 
walls  of  the  great  picture-gallery,  at  present  insuf- 
ficiently clad,  and  crying  out  for  covering,  like  a 
bather  who  has  lost  his  colthes,  flashed  into  her 
mind.  The  image  was  not  sufficiently  clearly 
realized  to  admit  of  a  definite  association  of  ideas 
between  it  and  the  allegory  at  which  they  were  all 
gazing,  but  certainly  as  she  looked  at  the  size — 
particularly  the  size — of  Mr.  Mainwaring's  master- 
piece, the  gallery  at  Howes  occurred  to  her.  If 
there  were  to  be  pictures,  here  or  elsewhere,  she 
liked  to  know  what  such  pictures  were  ''about,"  and 
she  instantly  perceived  what  this  one  was  about. 


PETER  139 

Now  that  the  war  was  won,  and  the  German  Em- 
peror, for  all  practical  purposes,  annihilated  (he 
had  served  his  turn  because  the  destruction  of  ships 
by  his  submarines  had  brought  her  so  excessive  a 
fortune),  she  could,  perceiving  the  message  of  the 
picture,  unreservedly  gloat  over  the  realism  of  it. 

''If  that  isn't  the  German  Emperor,"  she  loudly 
enunciated,  "and  if  that  isn't  Satan  whispering  to 
him  about  the  war.  Satan's  saymg  that  he  would 
help,  and,  to  be  sure,  he  tried  to.  I  do  call  that  a 
picture.  And  there's  the  war  coming  up  behind,  like 
a  thunderstorm.  There's  a  subject  for  a  picture,  and 
how  beautifully  you've  done  it,  IVIr.  Mainwaring." 

He  leaned  his  chin  still  more  heavily  against  his 
hand, 

"Ah,  you  think  so?"  he  asked.    "I  wish  I  thought 

so!" 

"But  what  is  there  to  want?"  asked  Mrs.  War- 
dour.  "It's  all  as  clear  as  day.  We  saw  nothing  so 
striking  at  the  Royal  Academy,  did  we,  Silvia,  when 
we  went  to  the  Private  View." 

"The  Academy?  The  Academy?"  murmured  Mr. 
Mainwaring,  as  if  he  wondered  whether  he  had  heard 
that  name  before.  Then  he  shook  his  head  gently, 
as  if  abandoning  the  attempt  to  remember  what  the 
Academy  was. 

"And  I  see  lots  of  guns  and  bayonets  underneath 
the  thundercloud,"  said  Mrs.  Wardour  unerringly. 
"They're  coming  up." 

The  artist  still  gazed,  and,  smoothing  his  chin 
with  his  hand,  he  repeated: 

"Yes;  they're  coming  up,  coming  up."    .    .    . 

He  gave  a  great  start,  and  seemed  to  shake  liim- 
self  like  a  big  retriever  emerging  from  the  water, 
where  he  had  brought  some  thrown  token  to  land. 


140  PETER 

He  did  not  know  of  the  great  gallery  at  Howes, 
which  starved  for  decoration ;  but  even  if  he  had,  he 
would  have  bounded  out  of  the  water  just  like  that. 

"Basta!  Basta!"  he  cried.  '*!  am  boring  you, 
dear  ladies,  I  am  wearying  you,  I  am  making  myself 
a  most  unutterable  teK:lium  for  you.  Where  is  my 
wife?  Why  is  she  not  here  to  tap  me  on  the  shoulder 
and  say  Tea'?" 

He  gave  the  preconcerted  signal  of  a  yodel,  and 
opening  the  door  of  the  studio,  repeated  it.  A  faint 
cry  from  upstairs  answered  him,  and  on  the  heels  of 
that  cry  Mrs.  Mainwaring  came  downstairs.  The 
introductions  were  floridly  effected,  and  she  shook 
her  finger  at  her  husband,  and  explained  her  reproof 
to  her  visitors. 

"I  always  tell  him  that  when  he  is  at  his  painting 
he  never  knows  the  time,"  she  said.  "John,  it  is 
very  wrong  of  you  to  have  kept  Mrs.  Wardour  and 
Miss  Wardour  down  here." 

She  turned  to  this  lady,  as  her  husband  vented 
himself  in  contrition  and  apology  to  Silvia. 

"Of  course  I'm  no  judge,"  she  said,  "for  I  always 
think  that  everything  my  husband  does  is  so  striking. 
But  is  not  that  a  wonderful  thing?  The  Emperor, 
Satan.  Yes.  Such  expressive  faces!  Now  I  must 
insist  on  your  coming  to  have  a  cup  of  tea.  I  always 
have  to  drive  my  husband  away  from  his  easel.  Look 
at  him  in  his  old  coat,  too.  John,  I'm  ashamed  of 
you !    Go  and  put  on  something  more  tidy." 

Silvia  felt  somehow,  as  Mrs.  Mainwaring  gave 
this  skilful  rendering  of  the  general  hints  that  she 
had  received,  as  if  she  was  listening  to  some  autom- 
aton wound  up  to  emit  through  a  mask-like  face 
certain  words,  certain  sentences,  that  formed  its 
accomplishment.    That  was  the  immediate  effect,  but 


PETER  141 

immediately  afterwards  followed  the  conjecture  that 
it  was  not  a  mere  automaton  that  spoke.  It  said,  so 
she  seemed  to  gather,  what  it  had  been  told  (or 
thereabouts)  to  say,  but  probalDly  Mrs,  Mainwaring 
was  capable  of  saying  and  doing  things  for  herself. 
Though  she  had  been  pulled  through  the  funnel  of 
Mr.  JMainwaring's  personality,  she  had  not  lost  her 
ow^n  individual  self.  But  what  that  individual  self 
was  she  could  form  no  conjecture.  It  was  as  if  a 
voice  came  from  inside  a  window  over  which  a  blind 
had  been  completely  drawn.  She  could  arrive  at  no 
perception  of  who  it  was  who  talked  behind  the  blind, 
nor  was  the  room  lit  within  so  that,  at  the  least,  there 
came  a  shadow  on  the  blind,  suggesting  features. 
All  this  was  no  more  than  the  details  of  the  first 
impression  made  by  a  nev/  acquaintance,  her  in- 
stinctive valuation  of  her  hostess,  something  to  work 
upon  provisionally.  Mrs.  Mainwaring  was  only  re- 
peating her  lessons,  which  she  seemed  to  know  so 
excellently  well;  she  gave  at  present  no  indication 
of  w^hat  she  w^as  like  when  her  lessons  were  over. 
But  that  she  existed  Silvia  had  no  doubt  whatever. 
There  were  people  like  that,  people  who  had  an 
aloof,  sequestered  life  of  their  own.  Then,  without 
being  conscious  of  the  transition,  she  knew  that  she 
was  thinking  of  IVIrs.  Mainwaring  no  longer,  but  of 
Peter. 

IMore  yodelling  proclaimed  that  the  artist  had  put 
on  his  tidy  coat,  and  he  pranced  back,  and  led  the 
way  upstairs  with  Mrs.  Wardour,  saying  that  he  was 
as  hungry  as  a  hunter,  and  hoping  that  his  wife  had 
provided  them  with  a  good  tea.  Mrs.  Mainwaring, 
on  the  other  hand,  seemed  a  little  to  be  detaining 
Silvia;  she  pointed  out  other  of  the  works  of  art  that 
so  plentifully  bestrewed  the  room,  and  this  struck 


142  PETER 

the  girl,  somehow,  as  bemg  part  of  a  manoeuvre  in 
no  way  connected  with  the  lesson  she  had  so  fault- 
lessly repeated.  The  blind  had  been  ever  so  slightly 
pushed  aside;  someone  was  looking  out. 

"Yes,  there's  a  picture  my  husband  painted  of  my 
son  last  year,"  she  said.  "I  think  you've  met  Peter, 
haven't  you,  Miss  Wardour?  That  was  considered 
to  be  very  like  him.  I  hope  he  will  be  home  for 
tea;  he  said  he  thought  he  could  get  away  from 
the  Foreign  Office  early  to-day.  Very  interesting  for 
him  to  be  in  the  Foreign  Office." 

Silvia  said  something  amiable  about  the  portrait, 
which  was  quite  recognizable. 

''So  pleased  you  think  it  like,"  continued  Mrs. 
Mainwaring.  "Yes,  Peter  is  at  the  Foreign  Office 
all  day,  and  he  is  generally  out  in  the  evening.  I  do 
not  go  out  very  much.  I  sit  at  home  mostly  in  the 
evening  and  read." 

Silvia  welcomed  a  new  topic.  Though  the  blind 
had  been  distinctly  twitched  aside  she  could  not  see 
in;  she  was  only  conscious  of  being  observed.  But 
this  seemed  an  encouraging  opportunity  of  getting 
a  glimpse. 

"What  do  you  read  most?"  she  asked.  "Novels? 
Memoirs?" 

"No,  what  I  like  reading  about  is  places  I  have 
never  been  to,"  said  Mrs.  Mainwaring.  "I  wonder, 
when  I  read,  what  life  is  like  in  those  places,  and 
how  I  should  enjoy  it." 

If  that  was  a  glimpse  for  the  girl  it  was  a  very 
momentary  one,  lit,  so  to  speak,  not  by  any  clear 
illumination,  but  rather  by  some  vague  dim  phos- 
phorescence. Silvia,  by  some  whimsical  association 
of  ideas,  found  herself  thinking  of  a  phosphorescent 
match-box ;  if  you  felt  for  it  in  the  dark,  you  might 


PETER  143 

find  matches  there  which  would  produce  something 
more  illuminating. 

"Ah,  I,  too,  love  new  places,"  she  said.  "I  love 
waking  in  a  new  place,  where  I  have  arrived  after 
dark,  and  wondering  what  it  is  going  to  be  like." 

The  glimpse  grew  a  little  more  definite. 

"I  should  like  that,  too,"  said  Mrs.  Mainwaring. 
"But  my  husband's  work  keeps  him  in  London,  and 
I  do  not  get  away  very  often.  Shall  we  go  upstairs 
to  tea?" 

As  they  turned,  Mrs.  Mainwaring  cast  one  glance 
at  the  great  cartoon.  For  the  moment,  infinitesimal 
in  duration,  her  neat  smooth  porcelain  face  grew 
hostile  and  malevolent. 

No  sooner  did  Silvia  appear  in  the  doorway  of  the 
little  drawing-room  facing  the  street,  than  Mr. 
Mainwaring,  to  her  immense  surprise,  bounded  from 
his  seat,  chasseed  across  the  room  to  her,  and  fell  on 
his  knees  before  her. 

"Behold  me  in  an  attitude  of  abject  entreaty!" 
he  said.  "Your  mother,  subject  to  your  acqui- 
escence, dear  Miss  Silvia,  has  asked  me  to  attempt 
to  use  my  best  endeavours,  feeble  as  they  may  be,  to 
render  you  the  eager  homage  of  an  artist's  skill.  She 
has  asked  me,  subject  to  your  consent,  I  repeat,  to 
paint  your  portrait  for  her." 

Even  as  he  spoke  there  came  the  quick  light  step 
on  the  stairs,  the  identity  of  which  Silvia,  seldom 
as  she  had  heard  it,  knew  with  a  certainty  that  sur- 
prised her,  and  Peter  came  in. 

"Kneel,  Peter,  my  dear,"  said  his  father,  enjoying 
himself  tremendously  and  putting  up  hands  of  sup- 
plication. "Maria,  my  angel,  I  beseech  you  to  kneel 
too.  We  are  entreating  Miss  Silvia;  we  are  urging 
the  sacred  claims  of  Art." 


lU  PETER 

Silvia  gave  a  laugh  of  sheer  amusement  at  this 
ludicrous  situation.  Amusement  was  the  only  pos- 
sible solvent  for  it. 

"Oh.  please,  let  nobody  kneel!"  she  said.  "And 
you,  Mr.  Mainwaring,  please  get  up.  Yes,  of  course, 
if  my  mother  wishes  it,  and  if  Mr.  Mainwaring  will 
be  very  patient  and  tell  me  what  to  do " 

He  bounded  up  again,  ecstatic  at  the  granting  of 
his  petition. 

"To  do?"  he  asked.  "Dear  young  lady,  you  have 
only  got  to  be.    Be!    Be  just  as  you  are  now." 

Again  he  supported  his  head  on  his  hand,  as  when 
he  gazed  at  the  cartoon,  and  with  the  other  shaded 
his  eyes,  staring  at  her  in  an  embarrassing  manner. 
He  gave  a  gay  yodelling  cry. 

"I  see  it' — I  see  it!"  he  announced.  "My  superb 
picture  is  already  flaming  in  my  brain.  Madam" — 
he  turned  to  Mrs.  Wardour — "you  shall  have  a 
masterpiece,  and  I,  John  Mainwaring,  will  have  cre- 
ated it." 

He  took  his  hand  from  his  forehead,  and  made 
a  movement  as  if  to  cast  something  away. 

"Enough!"  he  said.  "Let  us  descend  to  earth 
again.  My  angel,  give  us  our  tea.  We  are  ex- 
hausted by  our  adventures." 

Peter,  so  Silvia  noticed,  was  looking  at  his  father 
with  eyebrows  ever  so  little  raised,  as  if  in  contem- 
plation of  some  phenomenon  that,  however  familiar, 
was  still  remarkable,  and  his  lips  were  faintly  smil- 
ing. When  he  turned  to  Silvia,  as  he  now  did,  that 
expression  still  remained  there,  and  she  felt  that, 
wordlessly,  he  had  somehow  taken  her  into  his  con- 
fidence. Certainly  his  father  amused  him ;  his  raised 
eyebrows  and  half-smiling  mouth  told  her  that.  And 
was  there  a  touch  of  indulgent  contempt  in  it? 


PETER  145 

John  Mainwaring  continued  to  claim  the  atten- 
tion of  the  little  party  in  a  boisterous  rollicking 
fashion ;  it  was  like  being  out  in  a  high  wind,  where 
shouting  was  the  only  means  of  communication.  He 
assuaged  the  hunger  which  he  confessed  was  pro- 
digious, with  incredible  quantities  of  tea-cakes;  he 
ate  cherries  backwards,  beginning  with  the  stem.  He 
1  oared  with  laughter  at  his  own  jokes,  he  apologized 
for  his  boyishness,  and  whispered  to  Mrs.  Wardour 
that  he  was  ''in  for"  a  scolding  afterwards  from  his 
wife  for  making  such  a  noise.  .  .  .  And  there,  all 
the  time,  far  more  potently  vital  was  Peter  blowing 
off  no  steam  like  his  father,  but  quietly,  self-con- 
tainedly  reserving  it.  There  was  something  inscrut- 
able about  that  smooth  handsome  face,  though  now 
and  then,  as  their  eyes  casually  met,  Sylvia  felt  that 
she  was  looking  into  clear  dark  beckoning  water,  and 
if  her  eyes  could  not  fathom  it,  that  was  no  fault  of 
his  transparence,  but  only  of  her  own  purblind  pen- 
etration.   ,    .    . 

Mr.  Mainwaring  was,  just  now,  launched  on  a 
story,  the  very  recollection  of  which  made  him  laugh 
in  anticipation  of  what  was  coming,  and  Silvia  could 
let  her  eyes  roam  at  will.  She  looked  at  her  mother, 
at  the  narrator,  at  Mrs.  Mainwaring,  all  in  turn,  in 
order,  for  the  purposes  of  strict  impartiality  to  look 
at  Peter  as  well.  Mrs.  Mainwaring  with  wifely  and 
domestic  devotion  had  managed  to  attach  to  her  face 
some  faint  semblance  of  interest  in  the  story,  as  if 
it  was  new  to  her.  Then  came  Peter's  turn,  and  that 
handsome  inscrutability  suddenly  seemed  to  Silvia 
to  be  like  a  reflecting  surface,  which,  when  you 
looked  at  it,  showed  you  not  itself,  but  presented 
your  own  image.  She  saw  not  at  all  how  he  stood 
to  her,  but  how  she  stood  to  him.    Her  own  subjec- 


140  PETER 

tive  relation,  the  image  of  herself,  regarding  him  was 
flashed  back  at  her.  Looking  at  him,  in  some  mys- 
terious way,  she  saw  herself.  His  dark  clear  water 
gave  back  to  her  her  own  soul.  .  .  .  She  whisked 
lier  eyes  away,  forgetting  the  impartiality  of  her 
rotation,  and  found  herself  met  by  Mrs.  Main- 
waring.  And  there,  so  it  seemed,  she  found  compre- 
hension of  this  bewildering  impression.  As  regards 
Mrs.  Mainwaring  herself,  the  blind  was  still  drawn, 
but  from  behind  the  blind  Silvia  heard  inwardly 
and  unmistakedly  that  quiet,  precise  voice  saying, 
"The  girl's  in  love  with  my  Peter."  Mrs.  Main- 
waring,  by  some  divination  as  mysterious  as  her- 
self, was  in  possession  of  that ;  she  and  Silvia  shared 
the  secret  knowledge.  And  then,  before  the  girl's 
eyes  could  shift  themselves  to  Mr.  Mainwaring,  who, 
it  seemed  clear,  from  his  thumping  with  his  first  on 
the  tea-table,  was  now  at  the  climax  of  his  narrative, 
there  peeped  out  from  his  wife's  face  that  same 
secret  malevolence,  with  which,  as  they  left  the 
studio,  she  had  looked  at  the  great  work  of  art  that 
hung  there,  while  she  admitted  that  her  husband's 
work  kept  him  and  her  in  London. 

The  point  of  Mr.  Mainwaring's  story  entailed  the 
use  of  the  falsetto  voice,  and  Peter  at  its  conclusion 
got  up  on  the  pretext  of  handing  cigarettes,  and  re- 
seated himself  next  Silvia. 

"It  is  good  of  you,"  he  said. 

That  was  fragmentary  enough,  undetached  from 
any  context,  but  Silvia  found  herself  understanding 
him  perfectly. 

"My  mother  and  Mr.  Mainwaring  arranged  it," 
she  said.  "I  couldn't  very  well  say  no,  could  F?  Not 
that  I  wanted  to;  I  don't  mean  that." 

"My  father's  delighted,"  said  Peter, 


PETER  147 

He  paused  a  moment. 

"He's  in  gi-eat  form,"  he  added.  "You've  de- 
lighted him.    Aren't  we  a  weird  family?" 

There  seemed  no  direct  reply  possible  to  this. 
Silvia  could  not  imagine  herself  assenting,  and  it 
seemed  banal  as  well  as  untrue  to  say,  "No,  you're 
quite  ordinary."  But  she  found  herself  not  wanting 
and  not  even  needing  to  reply  at  all.  She  wanted, 
and  for  that  matter  she  needed  no  more  than  to  have 
Peter  there  and  be  wonderfully  happy.  He  shifted 
himself  a  little  in  his  very  low  chair  as  he  turned  to 
get  a  match  for  his  cigarette,  and  she  again  just 
found  herself  noticing  little  things  about  him.  His 
fingers  were  very  long  and  smooth,  the  nails  very 
neatly  sheathed  in  the  skin  that  held  them:  they 
grew  beautifully.  Best  of  all  was  the  short,  closely- 
clipped  hair  which,  when  he  bent  his  head  forward 
towards  the  match,  stopped  just  above  his  collar. 

"You  needn't  answer  that,"  he  said.  "Tell  me, 
instead,  what  you  thought  of  the  play  last  night. 
Are  people  sentimental — girls  particularly — like  that 
when  they  are  really  moved  by  emotion?  I  should 
have  thought  that  emotion  killed  sentimentality. 
But  it  may  be  different  in  Scotland." 

Peter,  at  the  conclusion  of  this  ridiculous  speech, 
suddenly  found  himself  in  the  dilemma  of  talking 
nonsense  without  the  co-operation  and  backing  of 
the  person  whom  he  was  talking  nonsense  to.  Silvia, 
at  any  rate,  did  not  contribute  any  soap-bubbles  of 
her  own,  and,  quick  to  perceive  that,  he  turned  to 
his  mother. 

"What  sort  of  hotels  are  there  in  Scotland, 
mother?"  he  asked.  "Oh,  I  must  explain  to  Miss 
Wardour.    My  mother  loves  reading  the  advertise- 


148  PETER 

inent-s  of  hotels  in  Bradshaw.  It  gives  her  the  sense 
of  travel,  doesn't  it,  mother?" 

He  paused  no  more  than  infinitesimally  and  went 
on  again  in  the  same  breath. 

"I  love  the  sense  of  travel,  too,  and  I  got  it  from 
going  to  the  Foreign  Office.  Guatemala  has  been 
my  apres-midi." 

Silvia  triumphantly  applauded  his  quickness.  She 
had  seen  on  Mrs.  Mainwaring's  face  a  protest  at  the 
invasion  of  her  privacy;  but  Peter  had  done  more 
than  merely  see  it,  he  had  slammed  the  door  again 
with  allusions  to  himself  and  Guatemala.  That, 
somehow,  a  perception  as  quick  as  intuition,  seemed 
to  her  extraordinarily  characteristic  of  him.  There 
was  no  stumbling,  no  hesitation,  where  she  would 
have  drawn  attention  to  a  similar  mistake  by  a 
bungling  silence.  His  mind  was  like  the  hair  on  his 
neck — abrupt  and  crisp. 

The  ball  was  with  Peter  again. 

"I  nearly  fell  asleep  over  Guatemala,"  he  said. 
''Surely  Guatemala  is  very  remote;  there  are  many 
things  more  immediately  interesting.  Nellie's  wed- 
ding, by  the  way.  It's  less  than  a  week  ahead,  and 
every  young  man  I  know  is  buying  new  pocket- 
handkerchiefs  to  weep  into.  I've  bought  an  ex- 
tremely large  one.  There'll  be  room  for  you  to  cry 
into  one  half  of  it,  Miss  Silvia,  while  I  cry  into  the 
other.  They  promised  to  send  it  round  on  a  hand 
trolley,  like  a  sack  of  coals." 

Silvia  laughed. 

"Ah,  I  shall  want  some  of  that  handkerchief,"  she 
said,  "but  not  to  cry  into,  only  to  wave.  She  is  going 
to  be  tremendously  happy,  isn't  she?  What's  he 
like?    I  hardly  know  him." 

Peter  considered  this. 


PETER  149 

"He's  like — he's  like  a  very  tidy  room,"  he  said. 
"Solid  furniture  and  not  a  speck  of  dust." 

"And  the  person  who  sits  in  it?"  asked  the  girl. 

"Nobody  sits  in  it.  At  least  I  never  found  any- 
one there.  Philip  is  the  room.  There's  TJie  Times 
warmed  and  folded;  there's  letter-paper,  big  and 
little,  and  envelopes,  big  and  little.  Perhaps  Nellie 
has  found  someone  there.  Philip  may  get  under  the 
sofa  when  anybody  else  comes  in." 

"And  she's  ver>^  much  in  love  with  him?"  asked 
Silvia. 

"You  ought  to  know.  She  takes  you  out  to  Rich- 
mond Park  and  sits  on  the  grass  with  you  all  after- 
noon." 

Silvia  wrinkled  up  her  eyes  as  if  she  were  focusing 
that  afternoon. 

"Nellie  dazzles  me,"  she  said.  "She's  like  the  sun 
on  water.  I  expect  she'll  make  his  room,  that  tidy 
room,  look  lovelj-.  But  I  shall  never  understand 
what  Nellie  does.  I  shall  only  understand  the  effect 
of  what  she  has  done.  She  has  a  spell.  She  makes 
you  see  what  she  has  seen." 

She  was  conscious  now  of  receiving  from  Peter  a 
more  direct  answer  of  eyes  than  she  had  ever  done 
before.  She  knew  they  were  talking  about  the  same 
things  now.  They  might,  each  of  them,  though  they 
were  talking  of  Nellie  (superficially  the  same  thing), 
have  been  regarding  her,  have  been  framing  their 
remarks  about  her  from  different  angles.  Given 
that,  as  Silvia  had  said,  she  was  a  dazzle  of  sunlight 
as  well,  one  of  them,  owing  to  the  prismatic  process, 
might  have  been  seeing  blue,  another  seeing  yellow. 
But  Peter's  answer  convinced  her  that  they  were 
both  seeing  Nellie  from  the  same  standpoint. 


150  PETER 

"That's  hit  her,"  he  said.  "Nellie  says  and  does 
nothing  trivial;  one  is  continually  discovering  that. 
She  waves  her  fingers,  and  she  mutters,  and  then, 
afterwards,  you  find  she  has  been  making  a  spell. 
Isn't  she  uncanny?  Or  she  tells  you  something  about 
yourself  that  you  didn't  know,  or  scarcely  knew,  and 
you  find  that  it  is  quite  solidly  true.  Is  she  a  witch, 
do  you  think?" 

Silvia  leaned  forward  towards  him.  It  was  im- 
possible not  to  "close  up"  with  this. 

"That's  just  what  I  said  to  her  once,"  she  said. 
"I  said  that  she  was  a  witch.  She  told  me  something 
about  myself  that  I  never  had  known.  It  was  true ; 
it  had  been  true  all  the  time.  But,  literally,  I  had 
never  had  the  smallest  notion  of  it  till  she  told  me." 

Indeed,  as  Silvia  acknowledged  to  herself,  the 
truth  of  what  Nellie  had  said  on  that  occasion  was 
receiving  a  firm  endorsement  at  this  moment. 
Etched  and  bitten-in  to  her  consciousness  from  the 
moment  of  that  prophetic  babbling  had  been  the 
image  of  herself  in  love,  singing,  so  Nellie  had  said, 
in  a  boy's  way ;  eager  to  be  allowed  to  give  homage 
rather  than  receive  it;  eager  to  be  allowed  to  love 
rather  than  to  permit  love  with  whatever  ardency 
of  welcome.  And  here  was  Peter  repeating  on  gen- 
eral gi^ounds  exactly  what  she  had  found,  and  in 
especial  was  finding  now,  to  be  magically  true. 

"Since  we  both  agree  she  is  a  witch,"  said  he,  "we 
ought  surely  to  collect  evidence  against  her.  What 
was  it  she  said  to  you,  that  something  unknown  to 
you,  which  you  found  to  be  true  when  she  said  it? 
I  have  evidence  also;  she  said  something  to  me  last 
night  which  I  didn't  know,  but  which " 

What  went  through  his  brain  at  that  moment, 
with  the  sureness  of  a  surgeon's  incision,  was  just 


PETER  151 

that  which  Nellie  had  said  when  he  told  her  that  he 
was  intending  to  ask  Silvia  to  marry  him.  He  had 
hedged  that  with  the  resen^ation  that  he  would  do 
so  when  he  thought  that  he  had  a  chance  of  success, 
and  witch-like,  with  swift  incontinent  prophecy,  she 
had  told  him  that  it  was  rather  late  already  as  re- 
gards to-night.  The  prophecy  had  been  encourag- 
ing at  the  time,  but  not  convincing.  Now  he  sud- 
denly felt  himself  convinced.  Why  or  how — their 
conversation  had  only  been  about  Nellie — he  did  not 
know.  But  it  seemed  that  Nellie  had  penetrated 
where  he  had  not.    .    .    . 

There  was  his  father  sitting  on  the  sofa  beside 
Mrs.  Wardour;  there  was  his  mother  veiled  and 
shrouded  from  him  as  she  had  ever  been,  doing 
something  with  a  teapot,  domg  something  with 
crumbs  left  on  plates,  for  which  she  made  some  con- 
coction, placed  in  the  balcony  outside,  for  birds. 
.  .  .  Had  he  been  alone  with  Silvia,  he  would 
have  proposed  to  her,  fortified  with  Nellie's  encour- 
agement, fortified  even  more  by  his  present  sense  of 
its  reliability,  then  and  there.  But  unless  he  knelt 
on  the  floor  to  her,  as  he  had  found  his  father  doing 
when  he  came  in    .    .    . 

"Oh,  what  did  Nellie  say  to  you  last  night?" 
asked  the  girl.    "Let's  collect  evidence,  as  you  say." 

"And  have  her  burned  outside  St.  Margaret's,  in- 
stead of  letting  her  marry  Philip  inside?"  suggested 
Peter. 

Silvia  gave  a  parenthetic  gasp. 

"I  suggested  that  she  ought  to  be  burned,  too," 
she  said.    "More  evidence,  please." 

Peter  found  her  entrancing  at  that  moment. 
There  was  some  keen  boyish  kind  of  frank  enthu- 


152  PETER 

siasm  about  her  that  attacked  and  challenged  in- 
stead of  merely  provoking.  She  asked  for  no  effort: 
you  only  had  to  allow  yourself  to  be  caught  up. 

"But  it's  your  turn,"  he  said.  "You  first  sug- 
gested that  Nellie  told  you  things  you  didn't  know." 

"No;  it  was  you  who  said  that." 

"It  may  have  been ;  but  it  was  you  who  suggested 
the  witch-like  quality.  You  said  that  she  makes  you 
see  what  she  has  seen.    You  know  you  did." 

Silvia,  ever  so  slightly,  withdrew^  herself. 

"Did  I?"  she  asked. 

"Of  course  you  did.  Now  do  be  fair.  You  began, 
and  therefore  it's  your  turn  to  bring  out  the  first 
piece  of  evidence.  It  was  in  Richmond  Park,  you 
know,  and  she  told  you  something  about  yourself 
which  you  didn't  know." 

Peter  put  his  hand  in  some  judicial  manner 
through  that  short  crisp  hair  above  his  neck. 

I  am  prepared  to  hear  your  evidence,"  he  said. 
You're  on  oath.    Get  on,  Miss  Silvia.    Don't  keep 
the  court  waiting." 

Silvia  shot  a  chance  arrow. 

"If  I  promise  to  tell  you,"  she  said,  "will  you 
promise  to  tell  me  your  evidence?" 

Peter  laughed. 

"I  think  we're  both  better  at  cross-examination 
than  at  confession,"  he  remarked. 

"Oh,  but  that's  no  answer,"  she  said. 

"I  know  it  isn't.    It  wasn't  meant  to  be." 

"Then  be  serious.  Will  you  tell  me  your  evidence 
against  Nellie  in  her  character  of  a  witch?" 

Peter,  quite  clearly,  let  his  eyes  rest  on  the  other 
occupants  of  the  room.  One  by  one  he  looked  at 
them. 

No!"  he  said.    "I  suppose  the  trial  is  adjourned 


<'\r 


«"\T, 


PETER  153 

owing  to  the  inexplicable  coyness  of  the  witnesses. 
So  there  we  are.  Nellie  will  marry  her  Philip  with- 
out a  stain  on  her  blessed  character." 

In  his  glance  round  the  room  Peter  had  observed 
that  Mrs.  Wardour  was  trying  to  catch  Silvia's  eyes. 
She  would  certainly  succeed  in  doing  so  before  long, 
and  then,  as  her  custom  was,  she  would  make  some 
faint  little  clucking  noises,  like  a  hen  that  mildly 
wants  to  be  let  out.  She  was  incapable  of  going 
away,  however  much  she  wanted  to  do  so,  unless 
Silvia  took  the  initiative.  She  clucked,  and  then 
Silvia  said  that  it  was  time  to  go.    .    .    . 

But  Peter  did  not  want  Silvia  to  go  just  yet;  on 
the  other  hand,  if  they  were  all  to  sit  here  until  the 
clucking  became  perceptible  to  Silvia,  their  visitors 
might  just  as  well,  for  any  practical  purpose,  go 
away  at  once.  Besides,  it  was  impossible  to  forget 
that  Nellie  last  night  had  prophesied,  and  it  had 
struck  another  as  well  as  himself,  that  she  was  a 
reliable  seer. 

He  got  up  rather  slowly,  rather  tentatively,  and 
fixed  in  his  mind  was  the  idea  that  Silvia  would 
make  some  sort  of  initial  step.  It  seemed  to  him 
that  they  were  both  hand  in  hand:  it  was  just  a 
question  of  who  lifted  a  foot  first,    .    .    . 

Silvia  did  not  turn  her  head  to  look  at  her  mother. 
If  she  had,  she  would  have  been  bound  to  attend  to 
the  duckings;  but  what  she  wanted,  more  precisely 
what  she  needed,  was  to  get  away  from  a  masked  fire 
of  elderly  eyes  and,  with  Peter  of  course,  just  to  be 
natural.  There  was  smouldering  in  this  room  some 
ember  of  supervision;  she  felt  herself  (and  him) 
under  a  magnifying  glass  being  looked  at,  being 
noted,  being  examined.  It  would  answer  her  need 
perfectly  well  to  go  with  him  on  to  the  balcony  out- 


154  PETER 

side  the  room,  to  see  if  the  evening  was  likely  to  be 
jBne,  to  be  sure  that  the  motor  was  waiting.  .  .  . 
Here,  there  was  Mr.  Mainwaring  visualizing  her 
portrait ;  worse  than  that,  here  was  the  more  gmilet- 
like  attention  of  his  wife,  who,  ostensibly,  was 
makmg  a  sloppy  saucer  of  food  for  the  London  spar- 
rows. Certainly  she  would  sooner  go  out  on  the 
balcony  alone  than  remain  here,  but  when  she 
thought  of  that  it  did  not  in  the  least  satisfy  her. 
After  all,  she  did  not  want  to  "sit  out"  alone.  What 
girl  would  want  that?  But  she  wanted  to  sit  out. 
,  .  .  There  was  no  sort  of  embarrassment  in  her 
voice  when  she  spoke  to  Peter. 

"May  we  go  down  to  your  father's  studio  again?" 
she  asked.    "I  haven't  seen  all  I  wanted  to." 

Surely  his  glance  met  hers  with  a  comprehension 
that  seemed  immeasurably  marvellous. 

"Yes;  do  come  down,"  he  said. 

The  clucking  became  inarticulate. 

"We  ought  to  be  going,  Silvia,"  said  her  mother. 

Peter  took  this  up. 

"Oh,  you  must  give  Miss  Silvia  five  minutes,  Mrs. 
Wardour,"  he  said.  "It's  only  fair  that  she  should 
know  the  sort  of  thing  that  father's  going  to  make 
of  her." 

Mr.  Wainwaring  gave  a  great  shout  of  laughter. 

"The  impertinence  of  youth!'  he  cried.  "Peter,  I 
disown  you.  I  would  cut  you  off  with  a  shilling  if  I 
had  one!" 

The  two  went  down  the  stairs  in  silence.  In 
silence  also  they  came  into  the  studio.  The  huge 
cartoon  filled  up  one  end  of  it;  on  the  other  three 
sides  was  the  stacked  debris  from  the  attics;  land- 
scapes and  portraits  and  sketches  littered  the  tables. 

"That's  rather  jolly,"  said  Peter,  pointing  to  one 


a 


PETER  155 

t  random.  "And,  0  Lord,  my  father  has  brought 
out  a  thing  he  did  of  me  last  year.  Rather  like  a 
hair-dresser." 

''Not  a  bit,"  said  Silvia.    ''But  it's  very  like  you." 

Peter  wheeled  about  and  faced  her. 

"Evidence!"  he  said.  "Do  you  know  what  Nellie 
said  to  me  last  night?  Of  course  you  don't,  but  I'll 
tell  you  now.  We  were  talking  about  you.  She 
said — she  encouraged  me  to  think  I  had  a 
chance " 

Silvia  stood  stock  still,  every  fibre  of  her  stiff  and 
arrested. 

"About  you.  A  chance,"  said  Peter  again.  "Is  it 
true?    Was  she  right?    Was  she  being  a  witch?" 

Silvia  had  been  lookmg  at  him  when  this  spell  of 
stillness  struck  her.  Now  her  eyelids  fluttered  and 
drooped,  then  once  more  she  looked  at  him  as  stead- 
ily as  before. 

"All  true,"  she  said.  "And  Nellie  told  me  some- 
thing. She  said  that  when  I  loved  anybody,  I — I 
should  love  just  as  I  love  now.  Just  as  I  love  now, 
Peter." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Silvia  was  sitting  in  Mr.  Wainwaring's  studio  one 
Saturday  afternoon,  waiting,  without  impatience,  for 
the  arrival  from  the  Foreign  Office  of  Peter,  with 
whom  she  was  motoring  down  to  Howes,  there  to 
spend  the  Sunday.  Silvia  was  perfectly  capable  of 
humour  with  regard  to  Howes,  for  she  called  it  "the 
family  seat."  This  indeed  it  was,  since  her  father 
had  bought  the  Norman  ruin  some  twenty  years 
ago,  and  quite  unmistakably  it  belonged  to  the 
Wardours.  He  had  made  it  habitable  while  Silvia 
was  still  a  child  and  during  the  war,  when  he  became 
quite  fabulously  rich,  he  made  it  abominable  also. 
To  that  period  belonged  the  great  picture  gal- 
lery. 

The  gathering  there  for  the  week-end  was,  though 
small,  a  rather  crucial  one.  It  was  to  introduce  to 
each  other  the  families  which  would  be  brought  into 
alliance  over  her  wedding.  Henry  Wardour,  Silvia's 
uncle  on  her  father's  side,  was  to  be  ponderously 
there,  and  his  wife  elegantly  so.  Then  there  was 
to  be  Aunt  Joanna  Darley,  Mrs.  Wardour's  sister, 
and  her  husband.  He,  Sir  Abel  Darley,  was  a  round 
pink  profiteer,  who  in  recognition  of  the  consider- 
able fortune  he  had  made  for  himself  by  over- 
charging the  Government  for  millions  of  yards  of 
khaki,  had  been  made  a  baronet,  presumably  in 
order  to  stop  his  mouth  if  he  felt  inclined  to  brag 
over  the  gulhble  Government.  Then  there  was  Mr. 
IMainwaring  to  represent  Peter's  side  of  the  connec- 

156 


PETER  157 

tion,  but  he  was  to  sustain  his  part  alone,  since  Mrs. 
Mainwaring,  with  an  impregnable  quietness  of  nega- 
tion, had  absolutely  refused  to  take  part  in  this  re- 
union of  families. 

''You'll  be  eight  without  me,  Silvia,"  she  had  said, 
"and  eight's  a  very  good  number.  I  shall  stop 
quietly  in  London  and  think  of  you  all  enjoying 
yourselves." 

Silvia's  sense  of  humour  prevented  her  from  form- 
ing any  tragic  anticipations  about  this  party,  though, 
as  she  would  have  been  perfectly  willing  to  confess, 
she  did  not  suppose  that  the  meeting  of  the  clans 
would  lead  to  any  instinctive  blood-brotherhood. 
But  Peter  would  be  there,  and  she  would  be  there, 
and  however  outrageous  and  incompatible  the  rest 
of  them  proved  themselves,  they  would  be  like  the 
heathen  "furiously  raging  together,"  but  unable  to 
disturb  seriously  the  foundation  fact  of  that.  She 
trusted  to  her  own  sense  of  humour  and  to  Peter's, 
to  enable  them  both  to  be  indifferent  to  what  hap- 
pened outside  their  own  charmed  corner.  Uncle 
Henry  and  Uncle  Abe,  and  Mr.  Mainwaring  and 
Peter  would  form  a  very  curious  company  after 
dinner  that  night,  when  she  and  her  mother  and 
Aunt  Joanna  and  Aunt  Eleanor  had  left  them  to 
"punish" — as  Uncle  Henry  would  undoubtedly  say 
— the  1870  port  of  which  he  was  so  inordinately 
fond,  while  the  ladies  would  form  an  equally  incon- 
ceivable committee  upstairs.  But  since  these  things 
were  to  be,  there  was  no  use  in  imagining  impos- 
sible situations.  Somehow  she  conjectured  that  Mr. 
Mainwaring  would  impress  himself  more  strongly 
on  the  circle  downstairs  than  either  of  the  uncles; 
he  had  more  exuberance. 

If  Silvia  had  been  set  down  to  construct  an  in- 


158  PETER 

congruous  party  of  eight,  she  could  not  by  any  fan- 
tastic selection  have  bettered  this  gathering.  Aunt 
Joanna,  for  instance,  nourished  an  ineradicable 
hatred  towards  her  sister  for  having  married  Silvia's 
father,  and  being  so  much  richer  than  Sir  Abe,  and 
even  Sir  Abe's  rank  and  her  own  were  powerless  to 
compensate  her  for  this.  Rich,  immensely  rich, 
Sir  Abe  certainly  was,  but  she  could  not  bear  that 
her  sister  should  be  so  much  richer.  Aunt  Eleanor, 
on  the  other  hand,  Mrs.  Wardour's  sister-in-law, 
had  only  reverence  for  Mrs.  Wardour's  wealth,  but 
what  she  thoroughly  despised  her  for  was  her  truck- 
ling (so  Aunt  Eleanor  put  it)  to  the  smart  world. 
Aunt  Eleanor  had  been  present  at  the  great  party, 
where  the  Russian  ballet  entertained  the  guests, 
and  the  presence  of  so  many  distinguished  people 
made  her  feel  perfectly  sick.  The  true  diagnosis  of 
her  indisposition,  however,  was  that  since  she  had 
tried  to  do  for  years  without  a  particle  of  success 
what  Mrs.  Wardour  had  so  brilliantly  accomplished 
in  a  few  weeks,  it  was  only  reasonable  that  she  should 
have  a  violent  reaction  against  that  sort  of  thing. 
If,  instead  of  marrying  Peter,  Silvia  had  been  about 
to  wed  a  peer,  or  somebody  of  that  kind.  Aunt 
Eleanor  would  certainly  have  felt  it  her  duty  never 
to  speak  to  either  her  or  her  mother  again.  Indeed, 
she  would  never  have  accepted  Mrs.  Wardour's  invi- 
tation at  aU,  so  she  had  made  quite  plain,  unless  she 
had  felt  it  her  duty  to  take  an  interest  in  her  hus- 
band's relations. 

Silvia  was  conscious  of  a  vein  of  caricature  in  this 
flitting  survey,  but  ridiculous  people  made  carica- 
tures of  themselves  without  the  collusion  of  the  ob- 
server. Mr.  Mainwaring  was  a  caricature  too:  she 
could  not  think  of  him  quite  seriously.     Probably 


PETER  159 

most  people,  if  you  regarded  them  from  a  strictly 
individual  standpoint,  had  a  touch  of  caricature 
about  them,  for  if  you  rated  yourself  as  a  normal 
person,  everybody  else  must  be  a  little  out  of  draw- 
ing. But  she  looked  at  the  caricatures  with  the 
friendliest  amusement;  she  loved  them  fand  here 
in  particular  was  her  mother  included;  for  being  so 
entirely  different  from  her — for  being,  in  fact,  pre- 
cisely what  they  were.  Humorous  observation  was, 
with  her,  less  a  critical  than  an  appreciative  process, 
and  now,  as  she  waited  for  Peter,  she  wanted  defin- 
itely to  include  Mrs.  Mainwaring  in  her  fascinating 
gallery.  But  for  this  last  fortnight,  since  her  en- 
gagement to  Peter,  she  had  found  herself  increas- 
ingly unable  to  give  her  this  genial  amused  observa- 
tion. More  and  more  did  Mrs.  Mainwaring  baffle 
and  elude  her.  There  was,  so  far  as  Silvia  could 
notice,  nothing  humanly  ridiculous  about  her,  and, 
Vv'hat  was  even  more  disconcerting,  the  girl  found 
herself  ever  more  incapable  of  attaching  herself  to 
her.  To  attempt  to  do  that  resembled,  in  some  un- 
comfortable manner,  the  notion  of  attaching  your- 
self in  the  dark  to  a  hard  smooth  surface ;  you  could 
nowhere  get  hold  of  her  or  find  projection  or  crevice 
in  which  to  crook  or  to  insert  a  finger  tip.  The  more 
closely  Silvia  looked  at  her,  the  more  strenuously 
she  attempted  to  get  into  any  sort  of  psychical  con- 
tact with  Mrs.  Mainwaring,  the  more  directly  was 
she  baffled.  She  could  not,  for  herself,  give  up  as 
insoluble  the  mystery  of  that  lady's  mental  and 
spiritual  processes;  there  must  be,  if  you  could  only 
lay  your  hands  on  it  in  the  dark,  some  key  to  her 
future  mother-in-lav/,  something  that  explained,  for 
instance,  her  unwearied  study  of  the  advertisements 
of  hotels.    No  one  could  be  as  completely  tranquil 


IGO  PETER 

and  emotionless  all  through  as  Mrs.  Mainwaring 
appeared  to  be.  Once  only  had  her  mind  slipped 
for  a  definite  instant  into  the  open,  like  a  lizard 
emerging  into  the  sunlight  and  flicking  back  again ; 
this  was  when,  on  the  first  visit  that  Silvia  and  her 
mother  had  paid  to  the  house,  Mrs.  Mainwaring 
unveiled  a  glance  of  malicious  hostility  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  great  cartoon.  Less  definite,  but  like  in 
kind,  was  the  habitual,  though  veiled,  hostility  with 
which  Silvia  felt  that  Mrs.  Mainwaring  regarded 
herself.  It  did  not  flame,  but  she  knew  that  she  was 
right  in  conjecturing  that  it  incessantly  smouldered. 
And  that  enmity,  to  Silvia's  sense,  was  of  the  same 
quality,  though  smouldering,  as  that  which  had 
leaped  in  that  swift  little  tongue  of  flame  towards 
the  cartoon:  what  puzzled  her  was  the  kinship  be- 
tween the  two.  From  the  context  of  that  moment 
in  the  studio,  it  seemed  to  be  Mr,  Mainwaring's  work 
which  kept  him  in  London  (and  her  therefore  with 
him)  that  had  kindled  that  odd  swift  spark.  Or  was 
the  origin  of  it  a  little  deeper  down  than  that?  Did 
some  shut  furnace  of  impatience  at  her  husband,  so 
floridly  symbolized  there,  some  deep-seated  core  of 
incompatibility  suddenly  flame  out  then?  If  so, 
what  was  the  kindred  nature  of  her  hostility  to  the 
girl?  Was  it  that  she  was  taking  Peter  away  from 
the  home  which  his  presence  there  just  rendered 
tolerable?  But  apart  from  those  two  "escapes,"  so 
to  speak,  of  genuine  feeling,  the  origin  of  which, 
after  all,  was  only  a  matter  of  conjecture,  Silvia 
had  no  clue  to  Mrs.  Mainwaring  at  all;  she  was 
practically  featureless  and  even  without  outline.  She 
could  not  sketch  her  at  all,  or  delineate  from  her  as 
model,  one  of  those  genial  caricatures,  such  as  her 
friends  so  freely  supplied  her  with   material  for. 


PETER  161 

Such  features  and  such  outline  as  she  could  per- 
ceive were  tinged  with  bitter  suggestions.  .  .  . 

Silvia  did  not  find  the  waiting  for  Peter  in  any 
way  tedious;  there  was  plenty  in  the  studio  to  fur- 
nish a  larder  of  thought,  though  what  most  occupied 
her  was  her  alert  attention  for  the  sound  of  his 
light  footstep  coming  down  the  passage.  But  apart 
from  that  food  for  reflection  was  about  out.  To-day 
the  end  of  the  studio  where  the  cartoon  had  hung 
was  empty,  so  that  if  Mrs.  JNIainwaring's  resentment 
was  inspired  purely  by  that  work  of  art,  she  might 
now  regain  her  tranquillity  again.  Silvia  would  see 
it  this  evening,  for  her  mother,  following  up  the 
idea  wdth  which  it  had  first  fired  her  in  connection 
with  the  empty  walls  of  the  picture  gallery  at  Howes, 
had  a  few  days  ago  made  a  purchase  of  it. 

Mr.  Mainwaring  had  been  very  glorious  on  this 
occasion ;  at  first  he  had  hysterically  refused  to  part 
with  it.  It  was  his  chef-d'ceuvre,  and  while  he  had 
a  couple  of  pennies  in  his  pocket,  he  was,  though 
poor,  too  proud  to  think  of  selling  it.  Then,  lest  that 
refusal  should  be  taken  too  seriously,  he  almost  im- 
mediately declared  that  it  should  be  his  wedding 
present  to  Silvia.  He  let  himself  be  hunted  out  of 
so  untenable  a  magnificence,  and  finally  he  so  far 
humiliated  himself  as  to  accept  a  fancy  price  for  it. 
As  Mrs.  Wardour  knew  (he  reminded  her,  to  make 
certain)  that  it  was  the  first  of  a  series  of  six,  upon 
which  he  was  contented  to  stand  or  fall  in  the  ver- 
dict of  posterity,  it  seemed  probable  that,  at  some 
future  time,  the  walls  of  the  picture  gallery  at  Howes 
would  be  far  less  empty  than  they  were  to-day. 

On  an  easel  near  where  Silvia  sat  was  the  portrait 
of  herself  now  approaching  completion.  To  her 
there  was  something  uncanny  and  arresting  about  it, 


162  PETER 

for,  by  accident  or  design,  the  artist  had  caught  some 
aspect  of  her  which  secretly  she  recognized  as  a  piece 
of  intimate  revelation.  She  herself  inclined  to  an 
accidental  derivation,  for  certainly  in  all  but  one 
point  it  was  a  flamboyant  and  uninspired  perform- 
ance, a  chronicle  of  a  green  ''jumper"  and  a  scarlet 
skirt,  a  haystack  of  dyed  hair,  and  a  rouged,  simper- 
ing mouth.  Her  head  was  turned  full  to  the  specta- 
tor, looking  over  the  shoulder,  in  precisely  the  same 
pose  (a  favourite  trick  of  the  artist's)  as  that  in 
which  the  German  Emperor  listened  to  Satanic  coun- 
sels. But  in  the  eyes,  in  the  badly  drawn  out- 
stretched hand,  clumsily  posed,  Silvia  saw  some  un- 
conscious rendering  of  the  "boy's  key."  She^  ac- 
quitted Mr.  Mainwaring  of  all  intention  and  of  all 
inspiration;  he  had  certainly  not  meant  that.  He 
had,  through  faulty  drawing,  given  a  certain  brisk 
violfence  to  her  hand,  a  certain  domination  to  her 
eyes. 

And  then  she  heard  the  click  of  the  street  door, 
and  the  quick  light  footstep  for  which  she  had  been 
waiting.  She  wondered  if  she  could  ever  get  used 
to  the  mere  fact  of  Peter's  return  from  however 
short  an  absence. 

He  kissed  her,  holding  her  hand  for  a  moment. 

"It's  too  bad  of  me  to  have  kept  you  waiting,"  he 
said.  "I  couldn't  help  myself.  There  was  a  mes- 
senger starting  for  Rome.  Haven't  they  brought  you 
tea?" 

"No;  I  thought  I  would  wait  and  have  it  with 
you." 

Peter  rang  the  bell. 

"And  my  father's  gone?"  he  asked. 

"Yes;  mother  called  for  him  and  drove  him  down. 
I've  brought  my  little  Cording  car  for  us." 


PETER  163 

"Just  you  and  me?  That'll  be  lovely,"  said  Peter. 
"Do  I  quite  trust  your  driving,  though?" 

"You  may  drive  yourself,  if  you  like,"  said  she. 

"No,  thanks;  I  trust  that  far  less.  I  must  see  if 
my  bag  is  packed.  Tell  Burrows  we  want  tea  at 
once." 

"Can't  I  help  you  to  pack  it,  if  it  isn't  done?" 
asked  Silvia.  .  .  .  Somehow  she  would  have  liked  to 
do  that,  to  fold  his  clothes,  to  squeeze  out  his  sponge. 

"No;  it's  so  sordid,"  said  Peter.  "Besides,  it's 
probably  done  already." 

"If  it  isn't,  call  me,"  said  she.  "No  man  has  any 
idea  of  how  to  pack." 

"And  you  want  to  teach  me?"  asked  Peter,  linger- 
ing on  the  stairs. 

Silvia  hesitated  only  for  a  moment. 

"No,  you  darling,"  she  said.  "I  don't  want  to 
teach  you  anything.    I  just  want  to  do  it." 

"Why?"  asked  he. 

She  came  closer,  raising  her  face  towards  him,  as 
he  leaned  over  the  banisters. 

"Your  things,"  she  said.  "Your  sponge,  your 
coat.  ..." 

That  pleasure  was  denied  her,  for  Burrows  had 
already  bestowed  Peter's  requirements  in  his  bag, 
and  he  came  downstairs  again.  Silvia  had  given  his 
father  a  sitting  for  the  portrait  this  morning,  and 
he  stood  frowning  in  front  of  it. 

"Trash!  Rubbish!"  he  said  at  length.  "And 
the  worst  of  it  is  that  he  has  got  into  it  some  infernal 
resemblance  to  you.    It's  a  caricature." 

"Oh,  we're  all  caricatures  to  each  other,"  said  she, 
"with  just  a  few  exceptions." 

"What  a  heathenish  doctrine.  Why  am  I  a  cari- 
cature, for  instance?" 


164  PETER 

"You  aren't.  You're  one  of  the  exceptions.  But 
tell  me  what  your  father  has  caricatured  of  me  in 

that?" 

Peter  looked  Lorn  her  to  the  portrait  and  back 

again. 

"All  of  you,"  he  said.  "The  reality  of  you:  the 
rest  is  quite  unlike.  You  haven't  got  mouth  and 
nose  and  forehead  and  hair  and  chin  the  least  like 
that.    But  the  person  inside  is  horribly  like  you-." 

Silvia  put  her  arm  through  his. 

"Horribly?"  she  said.    "Thanks  so  much." 

"I  didn't  say — just  then — that  you  were  horrible," 
said  he.  "I  said  horribly  like  you,  your  parody, 
your  caricature.  I  wonder  how^  I  dared  ask  such  a 
masterful  young  woman  to  marry  me." 

"You  knew  it  would  be  good  for  you,"  said  Sil- 
via.   "It  was  far  more  daring  of  me  to  accept  you." 

"There's  just  time  for  you  to  remedy  your  mis- 
take," said  he.    "Positively  the  last  chance." 

This  frank  kind  of  chaffing  talk,  as  between  friends 
rather  than  lovers,  had  grown  to  be  characteristic 
of  their  privacy.  Silvia  delighted  in  it:  it  had  the 
charm  of  some  cypher  about  it ;  the  blunt  common- 
place words  held  for  her  a  secret  meaning  known  to 
the  two  utterers  of  them,  which  was  only  to  be  ex- 
pressed by  these  symbols.  When  she  feigned  to  mis- 
understand Peter,  and  thanked  him  for  calling  her 
horrible,  there  lay  below  her  foolish  words  a  reality 
and  a  treasure  which  words  were  quite  powerless  to 
express.  Or  when  he  just  now  audibly  wondered 
that  he  had  dared  to  ask  her  to  marry  him,  she  felt 
that  he  conveyed  something  which  no  amount  of  im- 
passioned speech  could  have  indicated  so  well.  From 
the  hill-tops  of  their  souls  there  flashed  the  signal 
that  no  voice  could  convey.     Then  sometimes,  as 


PETER  165 

now,  she  had  to  use  another  symbol,  which  agam  was 
only  a  symbol,  and  with  her  hands  tremblingly,  eag- 
erly, shyly  clasping  him  round  the  neck,  she  drew 
his  head  down  towards  hers,  not  kissing  him,  but 
simply  looking  close  into  his  eyes. 

"Positively  the  last  chance!"  she  said,  "Oh, 
Peter,  what  a  fool  I  am  about  you.  Doesn't  it  bore 
you  frightfully?" 

"Frightfully,"  said  Peter,  keeping  to  the  first  code 
of  symbols. 

"You  bear  it  beautifulh^  darling,"  she  said.  "Oh, 
shall  I  ever  get  used  to  you?  I  hope  so:  I  mustn't 
go  on  being  such  a  donkey  all  my  days.  No;  I 
don't  think  I  do  hope  so.  Being  a  donkey  is  good 
enough  for  me.  Hee  Haw!  Oh,  let  go:  here's 
Burrows  coming  with  the  tea.  She'll  think  it  so 
undignified." 

It  was.  as  a  matter  of  fact,  she  who  had  to  "let 
go,"  as  Burrows  entered,  followed  by  Mrs.  Main- 
waring.  Silvia  had  before  now  tried  to  call  her 
"mother,"  but  the  experiment  somehow  had  not  suc- 
ceeded. Mrs.  Main  waring  answered  to  it  quite  read- 
ily, but  she  received  it,  so  the  girl  thought,  much  as 
she  might  have  received  an  unsolicited  nickname. 

"Why,  Mrs.  Mainwaring!"  she  said.  "I  didn't 
know  you  were  in." 

Mrs.  Mainwaring  paused  just  long  enough  to  let 
it  be  inferred  that  if  Silvia  had  made  any  inquiries 
as  to  that,  she  would  have  obtained  the  information 
she  sought. 

"Yes,  dear,  I  have  been  reading  upstairs  since 
lunch  time,"  she  said.  "I  came  to  have  a  cup  of 
tea  with  you  before  you  started.  I  hope  you  will 
have  a  pleasant  drive." 

Silvia  tried  to  approach. 


166  PETER 

"Ah,  do  come  too,"  she  said.  "Change  your  mind, 
and  come  with  me.    Heaps  of  room." 

"Thank  you,  dear,  I  think  I  will  keep  to  my  orig- 
inal plan,"  said  she.  "I  like  a  quiet  Sunday  some- 
times. I  shall  go  to  church,  and  perhaps  in  the 
afternoon  hear  a  concert  at  the  Queen's  Hall.  The 
time  will  pass  very  pleasantly." 

There  was  an  aura  of  correct  armed  neutrality 
about  this,  accompanied  as  it  was  by  that  cold 
sheathed  glance,  furtive  and  hostile,  that  caused 
some  half-comic,  half-impatient  despair  in  the  girl 
at  her  aloofness.  Mrs.  Mainwaring,  so  it  seemed  to 
her,  wanted  nobody  except  herself;  she  wanted  just 
to  be  let  alone. 

"Father  went  off  all  right?"  asked  Peter. 

"Yes;  Mrs.  Wardour  kindly  called  for  him  after 
lunch.  A  beautiful  car;  so  roomy.  There  was  an- 
other lady  and  gentleman  there:  I  think  Mrs.  War- 
dour  said  it  was  her  sister  and  her  husband.  Your 
father  insisted  on  going  in  the  box  seat  with  the 
driver.  He  made  a  great  noise  with  the  motor  horn, 
which  sounded  like  a  bugle.  He  was  in  very  high 
spirits." 

The  neutrality  exhibited  in  this  speech  was  almost 
too  correct  to  be  credible.  Nobody  could  have  been 
so  neutral.  Even  Mrs.  Mainwaring  could  not  quite 
keep  it  up,  and  something  very  far  from  neutral 
lay,  ever  so  little  below  the  surface,  in  her  announce- 
ment of  her  husband's  high  spirits.  Her  neutrality 
towards  Silvia  was  not  so  deadly  as  that  towards 
her  husband.  .  .  . 

Peter  laughed.  There  was  neutrality  there  too, 
but  it  was  more  contemptuous  than  deadly,  and 
quite  good  humoured  in  its  contempt. 

"Oh,  they'll  have  a  noisy  drive,"  he  said.    "And 


PETER  167 

if  Mrs.  Wardour  drives  him  back  on  Monday,  you'll 
be  aware  of  their  approach,  mother,  while  they're 
still  a  mile  or  two  away." 

Mrs.  Mainwaring  had  one  of  those  fine-lipped 
mouths  (very  neat  and  finished  at  the  outer  cor- 
ners), about  which  it  is  impossible  to  say  whether 
they  are  smiling  or  not  without  consulting  the 
conditions  prevailing  round  the  eyes.  But  as  Peter 
spoke  she  very  definitely  ceased  to  smile. 

"Monday?"  she  said.  "I  thought  Mrs.  Wardour 
was  so  kind  as  to  ask  him  to  stop  till  Tuesday." 

Peter  got  up :  he  noticed  nothing  about  his  mother, 
having  long  ago  given  up  any  attempt  to  compre- 
hend her. 

"Tuesday,  is  it?"  he  said.  "I'm  back  on  Monday, 
anyhow:  otherwise  what  would  happen  to  our  for- 
eign relations?  Shall  we  start,  Silvia?  I'm  ready 
when  you  are." 

Mrs.  Mainwaring  rose  too. 

"Yes,  indeed,  you  had  better  be  off,"  she  said. 
"You  won't  have  too  much  time.  Then  I  shall  ex- 
pect you  on  Monday,  Peter.    Tell  your  father " 

She  stopped. 

"That  you  don't  expect  him  till  Tuesday?"  asked 
he,  without  the  slightest  indication  of  any  mental 
comment. 

"Yes,  I  think  Mrs.  Wardour  quite  took  for  granted 
that  he  was  stopping  till  then." 

Silvia  made  one  further  attempt  to  evoke  a  touch 
of  cordiality. 

"Mother  will  be  delighted,"  she  said.  "But  it's 
horrid  for  you  being  all  alone." 

"No,  dear,  I  shall  be  very  happy,"  said  Mrs. 
Mainwaring  with  quiet  decision. 


168  PETER 

Howes  stood,  of  course,  in  a  park  of  considerable 
acreage,  surrounded  by  a  massive  brick  wall,  and 
reflected  its  colossal  self  in  the  lake  that  lay  below 
its  terraced  garden.  This  lake  had  been  artificially 
made  by  the  damming  up  of  the  stream  that  had 
previously  wasted  itself  unornamentally,  and  the 
road  that  had  dipped  into  the  shallow  valley  now 
ran  along  the  causeway  that  formed  the  farther  mar- 
gm  of  the  lake,  and  gave  the  visitor  his  first  com- 
plete and  stupendous  view  of  the  house.  The  wings 
and  galleries  that  had  been  built  out  rendered  the 
original  Norman  core  comparatively  insignificant, 
and  the  whole  resembled  an  apotheosis  of  a  station 
hotel  combined  with  a  fortress,  for  the  character 
of  the  older  part  was  borne  out  in  the  battlemented 
walls  that  spread  so  amply  to  right  and  left  of  it. 

An  avenue  of  monkey  puzzlers  led  up  to  the  long 
facade,  and  the  gardens  overlooking  the  lake  were 
like  some  glorified  arboretum,  where  you  might  ex- 
pect tin  labels,  asking  visitors  to  keep  off  the  grass 
and  not  touch  the  flowers.  At  intervals  along  the 
edge  of  its  immense  lawns  were  aloes  in  square  green 
tubs,  and  below  the  house  was  a  riband  border  of 
geraniums,  calceolarias  and  lobelias.  Inside,  the 
expectations  aroused  by  this  sumptuous  exterior 
were  fully  justified,  for  the  high  panelled  hall  was 
peopled  with  suits  of  armour,  each  with  its  num- 
bered label,  so  that  a  glance  at  the  catalogue  would 
put  you  into  possession  of  interesting  information 
about  it.  Armour  had  long  been  a  hobby  of  the  late 
Mr.  Wardour,  and  he  had,  very  quaintly,  installed 
electric  lights  in  the  gauntleted  hands.  There  was  a 
passenger  lift  in  one  corner,  a  groined  roof,  and  the 
famous  malachite  table.  Heads  and  antlers  of  stags 
hung  in  the  panels. 


PETER  169 

Silvia  had  rather  dreaded  this  moment.  The 
whole  place  with  its  monkey  puzzlers  and  malachite, 
its  aloes  and  its  awfulness,  had  been  left  by  her 
father  to  her  absolutely,  and  Peter  knew  (and  she 
knew  he  knew)  that  he  was  making  his  first  ac- 
quaintance with  what  would  be  "home"  to  him.  She 
had  not  seen  it  herself  since  the  day  of  her  father's 
funeral,  two  years  ago,  and  it  seemed  to  her — and 
how  would  it  strike  Peter? — that,  though  it  had 
the  traditional  quality  of  home,  in  that  there  was 
no  place,  as  far  as  she  was  aware,  in  the  least  like 
it,  its  unique  fulfilment  of  that  definition  was  its 
only  merit. 

With  a  sideways  glance  now  and  again  she  had 
observed  Peter's  growing  awe,  from  the  time  they 
had  crossed  the  causeway  (the  pride  of  it!)  to  their 
approach  through  the  monkey-puzzlers,  and  to  the 
final  revelation  of  the  malachite  table.  And  there 
was  much  more  to  follow — ever  so  much  more;  the 
Gothic  staircase,  the  blue  drawing-room,  the  pmk 
drawing-room,  the  picture-gallery,  the  swimming 
bath.  And  it  was  not  inanimate  magnificence  alone 
that  was  to  assail  him,  for  there  was  Uncle  Henry 
and  Uncle  Abe  and  Aunts  Joanna  and  Eleanor.  She 
ought  to  have  brought  him  down  quietly  and  alone 
for  his  first  sight  of  Howes.  .  .  . 

Peter  had  been  gazing  in  a  fascinated  manner  at 
the  malachite  table,  and  even  while  Silvia  was  won- 
dering how  to  convey  to  him  her  sympathy  and 
encouragement,  he,  with  one  of  the  flashes  of  intui- 
tion which  she  adored  in  him,  showed  that  he  had 
comprehended  with  unerring  accuracy  what  she  was 
feeling  about  him. 

"But  you're  going  to  be  here,"  he  said,  just  as  if 
she  had  spoken  out  all  that  she  was  puzzling  over 


170  PETER 

She  took  his  arm. 

"Oh,  my  dear,  I  promise  you  that,"  she  said. 
"And  I've  got  to  get  used  to  it,  too.  But  then  you'll 
be  here!  Shall  we  butter  each  other's  paws,  Peter, 
until  we  feel  at  home.  Let's  have  some  more  tea, 
in  fact,  and  find  where  the  rest  of  them  are." 

The  picture-gallery  seemed  a  likely  kind  of  place, 
and  there,  indeed,  the  six  representatives  of  the  fam- 
ilies proved  to  be,  and  when  kissing  ceremonies  were 
over  for  herself  and  the  rite  of  introduction  for 
Peter,  Silvia  found  herself  thinking  that  it  was  really 
all  for  the  best  that  they  should  have  burst  on  Peter 
in  one  comprehensive  revelation  rather  than  that  he 
should  have  been  subjected  to  a  series  of  shocks  and 
surprises.  Already  staggered  by  Uncle  Henry,  Peter 
might  have  been  quite  thrown  off  his  balance — so 
flashed  the  alternative  comedy  through  her  head — 
by  Uncle  Abe ;  or  what  if,  reeling  from  Aunt  Eleanor, 
he  ran  into  Aunt  Joanna  just  round  the  corner? 
Silvia  had  not  the  smallest  inclination  or  intention 
to  be  ashamed  of  her  relations,  but  it  would  have 
shown  the  joylessness  of  a  Puritan  not  to  be  amused 
at  the  blandness  and  the  blankness  on  so  many  faces 
(Peter's  included)  as  he  was  taken  to  each  in  turn; 
it  would  have  shown  too  an  almost  dangerous  rigid- 
ity that  her  voice  should  not  betray  a  tremor  of  sup- 
pressed hilariousness. 

Aunt  Eleanor  came  first:  she  looked  like  a  hand- 
some seal  with  adenoidal  breathing.  She  bowed  to 
Peter  with  freezing  propriety,  but  when  he  was 
moved  on  to  Aunt  Joanna  her  curiosity  got  the  bet- 
ter of  her,  and  she  instantly  put  up  her  glasses  to 
get  a  better  look  at  him.  Aunt  Joanna,  large  and 
marvellously  bedizened,  with  flowers  in  her  hat  and 
her  bosom  and  her  hand,  irresistibly  suggested  a  van 


PETER  171 

going  to  Covent  Garden  in  the  early  morning:  stie, 
too,  had  her  notions  of  propriety,  and  these  expressed 
themselves  in  a  cordiality  as  warm  as  Aunt  Eleanor's 
was  cold.  Then  came  Uncle  Abe,  who  was  so  like 
a  fish  that  it  really  seemed  dangerous  for  him  to  be 
sitting  so  near  Aunt  Eleanor.  He  held  out  a  hand, 
and  took  a  cigar  out  of  his  mouth,  which  remained 
open  in  the  precise  shape  of  the  cigar:  and  finally 
came  Uncle  Henry,  who  was  busy  with  "a  drop  of 
brandy,"  because  tea,  as  he  instantly  proceeded  to 
inform  Peter,  gave  him  heartburn.  Then  all  four 
of  them  stared  at  Peter  to  see  how  he  was  going  to 
comport  himself. 

Peter  was  never  more  grateful  to  his  father  than 
when  at  this  embarrassing  moment  Mr.  Mainwar- 
ing,  who  had  been  mysteriously  employed  at  the  far 
end  of  the  picture-gallery  with  a  cord  and  a  sheet 
and  a  step-ladder  and  three  bewildered  footmen, 
gave  a  loud  yodel,  set  to  some  words  like  mio  figlio, 
to  announce  his  perception  of  his  son's  arrival,  and 
the  accomplishment  of  that  on  which  he  had  been 
so  busily  engaged. 

"Ben  arrivato"  was  the  concluding  stave  of  his 
melody,  and  he  came  running  up  the  gallery  (there 
was  quite  enough  space  to  enable  him  to  get  a  good 
speed  up),  and  after  holding  Peter  for  a  moment  in 
a  joint  embrace  with  Silvia,  he  cast  himself  down 
for  a  moment  on  a  white  bear  skin  at  Mrs.  Wardour's 

feet. 

"EccoT  he  said.  "Ladies  and  gentlemen,  when 
you  will  distinguish  me  with  the  gift  of  a  moment 
of  your  leisure,  I  shall  have  the  honour  to  show 
you  the  first  of  my  completed  labours.  The  picture, 
the  poor  suppliant's  picture,  is  on  the  wall :  masked 
by  a  fair  Imen  sheet,  which,  so  I  fondly  hope,  is  in 


172  PETER 

control  of  a  cord,  just  a  cord,  which,  when  you  are 
ready,  I  will,  in  fact,  pull.  Unless  the  mechanism 
which  I  have  been  contriving  is  sadly  at  fault,  there 
will  then  be  revealed  to  you  that  which  the  sheet,  at 
the  moment,  is  so  discreetly  veiling.  Valour,  per- 
haps, my  valour,  is  but  the  worse  part  of  discretion" 
— Peter  had  heard  this  before — ''but  for  the  moment 
I  am  less  discreet  than  valorous.  I  will  show  you, 
complete  and  materialized,  the  vision  that  since 
August,  1914,  has  obsessed  and  dominated  my  life. 
1  pray  you,  gentle  sirs  and  madams,  to  indulge  your 
humble  servant,  and  to  take  your  places  exactly 
where  I  shall  have  the  honour  to  indicate,  opposite 
the  discretionary  linen  which,  when  removed,  will 
unbare  my  valour." 

He  rose  from  his  reclining  posture,  and  after  a, 
superb  obeisance,  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  the 
procession.  Already,  as  Silvia  had  foreseen,  he  was 
in  a  position  of  dominance:  Uncle  Abe  and  Uncle 
Henry  obeyed  his  orders;  Aunt  Joanna  and  Aunt 
Eleanor  clearly  ''perked  up"  at  this  ingratiating  sup- 
pliance.  For  himself  he  took  Mrs.  Wardour's  hand, 
holding  it  high,  as  in  a  minuet,  and  led  the  way. 
He  grouped  them ;  he  requested  them  all,  with  hum- 
ble apologies,  to  have  the  goodness  to  move  a  step 
backwards;  he  set  chairs  for  them;  he  put  his  finger 
on  his  lips,  and  on  tiptoe  advanced  to  the  dangling 
end  of  the  cord  and  pulled  it.  Up  flew  the  sheet, 
waving  wildly,  but  eventually  festooning  itself  cleai; 
of  the  cartoon.  Then,  swiftly  retreating,  he  mag- 
nificently posed  himself,  and  gazed  at  the  picture. 

For  the  moment  there  was  dead  silence:  then 
vague  clickings  and  murmurs  began  to  grow  articu- 
late. The  uncles  and  aunts  vied  with  each  other  in 
perception. 


PETER  173 

'The  Emperor,"  said  Uncle  Henry.  "Good  like- 
ness, eh?" 

"August,  1914,"  exclaimed  Lady  Darley.  "Ter- 
rible! Wonderful!"  And  she  drew  in  her  breath 
with  a  hissing  sound.  The  perception  of  the  date 
was  not  so  clever,  as  it  was  largely  inscribed  on  the 
frame,  and  Aunt  Eleanor  smiled  indulgently. 

"Yes,  dear  Joanna,"  she  said,  "we  all  see  that. 
But  look  at  Satan  whispering  to  the  Emperor!" 

"And  the  hosts  of  hell,"  said  Joanna  swiftly. 

Uncle  Abe  turned  to  Uncle  Henry. 

"A  marvellous  thing,"  he  said.  "Tells  it  own 
story.    I  call  that  a  picture." 

Mrs.  Wardour  merely  wore  the  pleased  air  of  pro- 
prietorship. She  had  seen  it  all  before,  and  she 
could  see  it  again  as  many  times  as  she  chose.  Mr. 
Mainwaring,  chin  in  hand,  just  contemplated  while 
these  appreciations  were  in  progress,  but  now  he 
seemed  to  wake  out  of  a  swoon,  and  passed  his  hands 
over  his  eyes. 

"Was  it  I  who  painted  that?"  he  muttered.  "I 
didn't  know  what  I  was  doing.  I  didn't  know  till 
this  moment,  when  at  last  I  see  my  work  properly 
displayed,  with  no  discordant  note  to  mar  it,  what 
I  had  done.  Does  it  terrify  you,  dear  ladies  and  gen- 
tlemen? Does  it  put  you  in  possession  of  August, 
1914?  Does  it — sth,  Dio  mio!"  He  covered  his  face 
with  his  hands  and  shuddered.  Then  advancing  to 
the  picture  again,  he  violently  shook  the  cord,  and 
the  two  linen  sheets  (double  bed)  rolled  back  into 
their  original  places. 

"Enough,  enough!"  he  cried.  "We  will  contem- 
plate it  more  calmly  when  we  have  recovered  from 
the  first  shock  of  our  bleeding  hearts.  Let  us  con- 
verse, let  us  smile  and  laugh  again.    Let  us  remem- 


174  PETER 

ber  that  the  war  is  over.  But  it  is  laid  on  me  by 
destiny  to  execute  five  more  such  pictures,  not  less 
terrible.  If  I  live,  they  shall  be  done.  Yes,  yes; 
I  do  not  falter!  But,  for  a  while,  let  me  forget,  let 
me  forget." 

Mrs.  Wardour  spaced  out  the  wall  with  a  pleased 
eye. 

"They  will  just  fill  the  length  of  the  gallery,"  she 
said,  "if  we  do  not  crowd  them.  Silvia,  my  dear, 
you  must  persuade  Mr.  Mainwaring.  .  .  .  Well,  I'm 
sure,  if  that  isn't  the  dressing  bell." 

A  vindictive  purpose  was  weaving  itself  below  the 
embowering  flowers  of  Lady  Barley's  hat,  and  accel- 
erating the  heart-beat  below  the  nosegay  on  her 
bosom,  so  that  the  gardenias  were  all  of  a  tremble. 
Lucy  might  be  rich  (indeed,  it  was  quite  certain  that 
she  was  horribly  rich),  but  comparative  paupers 
such  as  herself  were  not  to  be  altogether  trampled 
upon,  and  other  people  beside  Lucy  had  picture-gal- 
leries. Apparently  the  series  of  these  tremendous 
allegories  was  not  yet  painted,  was  not  yet  either 
definitely  "bespoken"  by  her  sister,  and  Joanna,  as 
she  waded  through  the  thick  Kidderminster  rugs 
that  carpeted  the  Gothic  staircase  on  the  way  to  her 
room,  felt  that  the  only  thing  in  life  that  wss  worth 
living  for  at  this  moment  was  to  order  a  replica  of 
the  first,  and  secure  (with  an  embargo  on  replicas) 
the  remainder  of  this  series. 

Never  in  her  life  had  she  been  so  artistically  over- 
whelmed as  by  that  prodigious  canvas,  and  if  all 
the  rest  were  going  to  be  "up  to  sample"  she  could, 
as  their  possessor,  scoff  at  the  art  treasures  of  the 
world.  Sir  Abe  had  dabbled  in  pictures  already:  he 
had  a  Turner  sunset  which  hung  in  the  dining-room, 


PETER  175 

at  which  he  often  pointed  over  his  shoulder  as  a 
"pooty  little  thing";  he  had  a  Rembrandt  of  a  very 
puckered-looking  old  woman  which  had  aroused  the 
envy  of  those  who  w^ere  permitted  to  see  it  and  to 
be  told  that  it  came  out  of  the  Marquis  of  Brent- 
ford's collection.  These  were  desirable  possessions, 
but  they  were  jejune  compared  to  Mr.  Mainwaring's 
masterpiece  and  the  masterpieces  that  were  to  fol- 
low. The  war!  That  was  something  to  paint  pic- 
tures about.  .  .  . 

Her  envy  of  her  sister  rose  to  the  austerity  of  a 
passion  when  she  contemplated  the  equipment  of 
her  bedroom,  and  that  of  her  husband  next  door. 
There  was  a  bathroom  attached  to  each,  both  fitted 
with  the  most  amazing  taps  and  squirts,  and  a  little 
sitting-room  attached  to  each,  and  a  lift  of  which 
Mrs.  Wardour  (showing  her  her  room,  and  hoping 
she  would  be  comfortable)  explained  the  working. 
You  pressed  a  button  and  were  wafted.  .  .  .  The 
same  lift  served  Aunt  Eleanor's  rooms,  but  Lucy 
and  Peter  and  Silvia  used  another  one.  .  .  .  The  lift 
clinched  her  resolution,  and  she  conjugally  conferred 
with  Sir  Abe.  He,  to  her  delight,  was  as  much  im- 
pressed with  the  passion  for  "scoring  off"  Lucy  as 
with  the  merits  of  the  cartoon,  but  his  business 
habits  had  to  make  hesitations  and  conditions,  not 
"do  a  deal"  blindly. 

"Well,  my  lady,"  he  said,  "you  shall  ha.ve  the  pic- 
tures if  they're  to  be  obtained  reasonably.  What 
shall  I  offer,  now?  Most  striking  that  one  was,  and 
that  and  similar  are  worth  paying  a  pretty  penny 
for.  What  did  your  sister  give  for  that  one?  Then, 
if  reasonable,  I  don't  mind  if  I  add  twenty-five  per 
cent,  more,  and  secure  the  lot.  They'll  be  some- 
thing to  point  at.    Get  along  and  let  me  have  my 


176  PETER 

bath.  You  try  to  find  out  what  your  sister  paid, 
and  then  we'll  know  where  we  are,  my  lady." 

She  noted  with  pleasure  that  he  relapsed  into  a 
cockney  accent  and  a  slight  uncertainty  about  as- 
pirates as  he  spoke.  That  was  a  good  sign :  it  showed 
he  was  in  earnest  and  interested,  for  in  dalliance  of 
light  conversation  Sir  Abe  was  "as  good  at  his  h's" 
as  anybody. 

It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  the  cartoon  and  the 
magnificence  of  its  introduction  should  have  no  ef- 
fect on  Aunt  Eleanor,  or  that  (her  general  animosity 
towards  Mrs.  Wardour  being  of  the  same  fine  order 
as  Aunt  Joanna's)  she  should  not  have  been  kindled 
with  ambition  to  bring  off  some  similar  vindictive 
stroke.  But  for  her  the  acquisition  of  these  immense 
decorations  was  out  of  the  question,  for  her  husband 
would  certainly  not  pay  such  a  price  as  she  felt  sure 
would  be  necessary  to  secure  them,  and  even  if  he 
did  his  house  did  not  contain  suflacient  uninter- 
rupted wall  space,  so  that  to  hang  them  at  all  she 
would  have  to  cut  them  up  into  sections  and  paper 
several  different  rooms  with  them.  But  Mr.  Main- 
waring  had  said  something  about  the  original 
sketches  for  them,  which  had  suggested  an  idea  that 
took  her  fancy  at  once.  The  sketches  were,  after 
all,  the  "originals,"  the  significant  buds  from  which 
these  over-blown  blossoms  had  developed,  and  the 
sketches  would  be  far  more  manageable,  both  from 
point  of  view  of  hanging,  and  from  that  of  purchase. 
There  was  a  subtlety,  a  refinement  in  possessing 
"originals"  that  these  acreages  of  paint  could  not 
compete  with.  Her  powerful  imagination  pictured 
herself  exhibiting  them  to  envious  friends. 

"Yes,  my  sister-in-law,  I  believe,  has  copies,  on 
a  large  scale,"  she  would  say,  "of  my  series.    These, 


PETER  177 

of  course,  are  the  originals.  Such  freshness,  such 
power,  all  quite  lost  in  the  later  and  larger  version." 
And  she  held  her  seal-like  head  very  high,  and 
snorted  through  her  nostrils  as  she  sailed  into  the 
pink  drawing-room  just  before  the  dinner  bell  rang. 
She  was  the  first  to  come  down,  and  had  time  to 
examine  with  pain  and  disgust  the  photograph  of  a 
royal  personage,  with  a  crown  on  its  frame,  that 
stood  very  conspicuously  alone  on  the  table  by  the 
sofa  where  she  seated  herself. 

Mr.  Mainwaring's  star  continued  to  be  violently 
ascendant  all  evening.  His  harangues,  his  humour, 
his  habit  of  pausing  in  the  middle  of  one  of  his  inter- 
minable stories,  until  complete  silence  had  been 
established  round  the  table,  dominated  dinner,  and 
^\hen  the  ladies  rose  to  leave  the  gentlemen  to  their 
cigars  and  wine,  Mrs.  Wardour  addressed  him  di- 
rectly and  laid  upon  him  not  to  permit  them  too 
long  a  sitting.  This  gave  him  the  rank  of  host,  and 
developed  his  social  horse-power  to  so  high  an  ef- 
ficiency that  on  rejoining  the  ladies  he  sang  the 
Toreador's  song  out  of  Carmen.  Then  after  that 
had  been  repeated  he  permitted  the  uncles  and  aunts 
to  indulge  themselves  with  bridge,  and  since  wives 
partnered 'their  own  husbands,  this  gave  scope  for 
some  pleasant  family  revilings,  in  which  the  ladies 
came  off  far  the  best.  Having  thus  arranged  for 
their  pleasure,  Mr.  Mainwaring  grouped  himself  with 
his  hostess,  Silvia  and  Peter,  and  grew  patriarchal 
and  full  of  sentiment  over  the  charming  family  party 
of  parents  and  children.  On  Mrs.  Wardour's  going 
to  bed,  leaving  the  bridge-party  jealously  over-calling 
their  hands,  he  conducted  her  once  more  to  pay  hom- 
age to  the  cartoon,  and  remained  there  in  meditation. 


178  PETER 

Silvia  and  Peter  had  wandered  out  on  to  the 
dusky  terrace.  A  twilight  of  stars  lit  the  still  night, 
and  she  drew  long  breaths  of  restoration  from  the  ex- 
haustion of  these  stupendous  hours.  Once  clear  of 
the  house,  and  leaning  over  the  balustrade  above  the 
lake,  she  gave  way  to  hopeless  laughter. 

"Peter,  darling,  are  my  relations  more  than  you 
ought  to  be  asked  to  stand?"  she  said.  "Did  you 
know  there  were  such  people  as  Uncle  Abe?" 

"Did  you  know  there  were  such  people  as  my 
father?"  said  Peter. 

"Oh,  but  he's  your  father,"  said  Silvia  quickly. 
"You  mustn't  bring  him  in." 

"Why  not?  After  all,  it's  he  who  brings  himself 
in.  There's  only  one  word  for  him.  Bounder. 
Uncle  Abe  isn't  a  bounder  exactly.  Uncle  Henry 
isn't  a  bounder." 

"No,  he's  just  a  cad,"  said  Silvia  enthusiastically. 
"I  love  people  being  themselves,  whatever  they  hap- 
pen to  be.  I  should  enjoy  them  much  more,  though, 
if  you  weren't  here." 

"I  can  go  to-morrow  morning,"  said  Peter. 

For  one  moment  she  thought  that  he  spoke  seri- 
ously: the  next  she  laughed  at  herself  for  having 
been  hoaxed  by  his  assumed  sincerity  of  voice:  "as- 
sumed" it  just  had  to  be. 

"Ah,  you  said  that  beautifully,"  she  announced; 
"and  all  the  evening,  do  you  know,  you've  been  say- 
ing things  beautifully,  with  your  mask  on,  too,  your 
best  and  smartest  mask.  I've  been  listening  to  you, 
and  never  for  a  moment  could  I  catch  a  word  or  a 
silence  on  your  part  to  show  that  you  weren't  thor- 
oughly amused  and  interested  by  the  aunts.  You 
behaved  as  if  they  were  just  the  sort  of  people  you 
were  accustomed  to  meet,  but  rather  more  charming. 


PETER  179 

You  have  been  convincing,  and  you  were  convinc- 
ing just  now  when  you  suggested  going  away  to- 
morrow." 

Peter  had  not,  of  course,  meant  to  convey  that  he 
really  could  go  away  to-morrow,  but  it  had  been 
quite  easy  for  him  to  render  his  seriousness  plaus- 
ible, since,  though  impossible,  this  was  a  most  agree- 
able project.  But  w^hat  rendered  that  project  so 
attractive  was  the  escape  not  from  the  aunts  and 
uncles,  with  whom  he  was  quite  as  willing  to  be 
diverted  as  their  niece,  but  from  his  father.  His 
father,  in  this  milieu,  with  his  bounce  and  his  bound- 
ing, his  general  "make-up"  of  the  large-souled,  child- 
like artist,  now  humbly  bespeaking  the  indulgence 
of  his  patrons,  and  immediately  afterwards  behaving 
as  if  he  was  Michael  Angelo,  was  intolerable.  His 
gaiety,  his  singing,  his  family  grouping  with  himself 
as  aged  and  contemplative  parent,  w^hile  the  moment 
before  he  had  been  twirling  his  moustaches  and  bel- 
lowing out  the  song  of  the  toreador,  were  indecencies 
for  a  son's  eye.  If  only  he  had  been  slightly  fuzzy 
and  intoxicated  with  many  liqueur  brandies  like 
Uncle  Henry,  that  would  have  been  a  palliative: 
as  it  was  he  was  only  intoxicated  with  himself.  .  .  . 

Peter  recalled  himself  from  these  impious  medita- 
tions to  the  needs  of,  or  (if  not  the  needs)  the  appro- 
priateness for  the  immediate  occasion.  Silvia  and 
he  had  contrived  a  lover's  interlude  under  the  stars. 

"Will  you  always  be  as  charitable  to  me  as  you 
are  to  my  father?"  he  asked.  "When  I  am  absurd 
and  annoying,  will  you  just  be  amused?" 

The  question  seemed  to  him  well  framed:  it  led 
him  and  her  away  from  all  these  nonsensicalities 
into  the  region  where  the  simple  things  abided.  He 
expected  some  pressure  on  his  arm,  some  little  depre- 


180  PETER 

cation  of  his  silliness,  some  whisper  to  inform  him 
that  he  was  a  goose  or  an  idiot.  Instead,  Silvia's 
hand  slackened  in  the  crook  of  his  arm  and  withdrew 
itself. 

"Oh,  Peter,  what  a  thing  to  ask!"  she  said.  ''As 
if  I  could  be  'charitable'  to  you  as  long  as  you  loved 
me,  or  as  if  I  could  find  you  annoying  so  long  as  I 
loved  you.  You're  pretending  not  to  understand. 
Don't  pretend  like  that  any  more." 

Peter's  quick  brain  was  alert  on  the  scent.  He 
had  meant  his  words  to  be  construed  into  a  lover- 
hke  speech,  and  had  completely  thought  that  they 
could  be  interpreted  thus.  But  her  answer  con- 
vinced him  that  to  her  they  were  not  construable 
at  all,  but  only  gibberish.  Before  he  could  amend 
himself,  or  even  quite  follow  her,  she  flashed  out  her 
full  meaning. 

"Anybody  else  in  the  world  except  you  can  be 
annoying,"  she  said,  "and  I  hope  I  can  be  charitable 
to  anybody  else  in  the  world  except  you.  But  how 
can  I  be  charitable  to  you?  Or  how  can  you  be 
trying  to  me?  Don't  you  know  that  I  am  you?  For 
a  month  I've  ceased  to  be  myself  at  all.  There  isn't 
any  'me.'  It  isn't  'me'  you  think  you  are  in  love 
with;  it's — it's  just  the  completion  of  your  own 
wonderfulness.  And  as  for  their  being  any  'you,' 
why,  you've  ceased  long  ago.  I've  absorbed  you. 
I've — I've  drowned  you  in  myself  and  in  my  adora- 
tion. I'm  round  you.  I  crush  you  and  I  worship 
you—-" 

Silvia  broke  off  suddenly  as  there  appeared  at 
the  drawing-room  window  a  black  tall  silhouette 
yodelling  and  crying,  "Coo-ee.     Children!" 

"Oh,  damn  that  man,"  said  she.  "Sorry,  Peter, 
but,  well,  there  it  is." 


CHAPTER  IX 

Peter  was  sitting  (so  superbly  that  it  might  have 
been  called  lying)  on  a  long  dream-provoking  chair 
set  outside  the  south  facade  at  Howes.  For  the  mo- 
ment he  was  alone,  and  he  surprised  himself  with 
the  unbidden  thought  of  how  seldom  he  had  been 
alone  during  the  last  fortnight^ — since,  in  fact,  the 
day  of  the  wedding,  which  had  taken  place  in  the 
unfashionable  early  days  of  September.  This  con- 
stant companionship  of  Silvia,  their  motor  drives, 
their  golf,  their  fishing  in  the  lake,  their  long  sit- 
tings with  books  or  newspapers  of  which  but  little 
was  read,  had  seemed  to 'him  as  he  looked  back  on 
them  (conglomerated  and  coagulated,  like  little 
drops  of  mercury  running  together  to  form  a  globu- 
lar brightness)  to  have  been  wholly  delightful  and 
satisfying.  These  days  had  been  for  him,  in  fact,  a 
soft  luminous  revelation  of  how  completely  pleasant 
days  could  be.  Without  a  touch  of  complacency  he 
could  not  help  knowing  how  every  word  and  every 
whim  of  his  had  seemed  adorable  to  Silvia,  and  he 
knew  that,  search  as  he  might  (he  did  not  propose 
to  search  at  all),  he  would  be  able  to  find  no  move- 
ment or  mood  of  hers  that  he  could  have  corrected 
or  rectified.  She  had  taken  possession  of  him  ten- 
derly, and,  as  if  with  held  breath,  watched,  beauti- 
fully bright-eyed,  to  discover  and  anticipate  the 
moods  of  his  desires;  and  in  answer  he  had  given  her 
not  acquiescence  alone,  but  the  eager  consent  of 

181 


182  PETER 

every  fibre  of  his  being.    It  seemed  perfect  that  she 
should  be  like  that. 

Silvia  had  just  left  him  to  meet  her  mother,  who, 
at  the  expiration  of  their  uninterrupted  fortnight, 
was  coming  down  to  Howes  that  day;  and  Peter, 
alone  for  an  hour  on  this  September  afternoon,  let 
the  hot  sunshine,  fructifying  and  caressing,  melt 
the  marrow  of  his  bones,  the  impressed  records  on 
his  brain,  into  definite  consciousness.  The  bees  hum- 
ming over  the  flower-beds,  the  red-admiral  butterflies 
opening  and  shutting  their  vermilion  streaked  wings, 
the  swallows  not  yet  gathering  for  their  autumn  de- 
parture, all  conduced  to  leisurely  summer-like  medi- 
tation, and  he  found  hmiself  in  possession  of  proposi- 
tions and  conclusions  which  he  had  scarcely  known 
were  his.  This  supreme  sense  of  content  came  first; 
that,  like  a  wash  of  warm  colour,  underlay  the  details 
that  now  began  with  a  finer  brushwork  to  outline 
themselves,  and  each  of  them  appeared  equally  ad- 
mirable, equally  germane  to  the  values  of  the  emerg- 
ing picture. 

Mrs.  Wardour's  arrival  was  an  important  touch; 
it  might  almost  be  called  a  fresh  wash  of  colour.  Out 
of  numerous  reflections,  considerations,  weighings  of 
this  and  that,  each  of  them  at  the  time  too  liquid 
and  inconclusive  to  call  a  plan,  a  plan  now  had  cer- 
tainly crystalized.  They,  the  three  contributory  con- 
trivers of  it,  had,  so  to  speak,  pooled  the  London 
house  and  this,  making  two  houses  for  the  three  of 
them.  Peter  would  be  returning  to  his  work  in 
Whitehall  next  day,  and  since  no  sane  being  would 
wish  to  remain  in  London  in  these  mellow  radiances 
of  September  and  October  for  longer  than  was  abso- 
lutely necessary,  he  would,  as  a  rule  flow  up  in  the 
swiftest  of  cars  in  the  morning,  and  stream  back 


PETER  183 

again  in  the  late  afternoon.  For  one  reason  or  an- 
other, again,  he  might  find  himself  wanting  or  being 
obliged  to  spend  a  night  in  town ;  he  would  be  away 
all  day,  anyhow,  and  what  could  be  more  convenient 
than  ^Irs.  Wardour's  perfect  willingness  to  establish 
herself  for  the  present  at  Howes,  where  she  would 
supply  companionship  for  Silvia,  and  find  it  her- 
self? Silvia  again  might  want  to  spend  a  day  or 
two  in  town,  and  her  mother  could  please  herself 
as  to  whether  she  joined  her  or  not.  From  such  a 
germ  the  idea  of  keeping  both  houses  pooled  and 
permanently  open  for  any  or  all  of  them  had  easily 
developed.  Headquarters  for  the  present  would  be 
in  the  country,  and  London,  to  Mrs.  Wardour's  no- 
tion, would  be  something  of  a  picnic,  with  the  house 
half  shut  up.  But  with  four  or  five  servants  there, 
there  would,  she  hoped,  be  no  angles  of  real  discom- 
fort. 

Mrs.  Wardour  then,  to  all  intents  and  purposes, 
was  to  live  with  them;  but  Peter,  so  ran  the  deed, 
was  "master"  at  Howes;  while  in  London  he  and 
Silvia  would  have  the  wide  license  of  guests  pecu- 
liarly privileged,  at  liberty  to  ask  friends  there  when- 
ever they  wished.  The  crystallization  of  it,  the  defi- 
nite statement  and  treaty,  after  infinite  probings 
and  testings  on  her  part  into  Peter's  most  intimate 
feelings  on  the  subject,  had  been  entirely  Silvia's. 
It  had  been  she  who  had  finally  suggested  it,  with 
the  proviso  that  anybody — by  which  she  undoubt- 
edly meant  her  husband — was  to  tear  up  the  treaty 
without  any  possibility  of  offence,  if  he  found  it  un- 
workable or  unsatisfactory ;  but,  as  he  thought  over 
it  now,  he  was  frankly  surprised  at  himself  to  find 
how  eminently  satisfactory  a  fulfilment  of  it  he 
augured.     Silvia  had  suggested  it   (there  was  the 


184  PETER 

great  point),  and  though  he  felt  that  he  could  jiot 
himself  have  conceivably  presented  a  treaty  like  that 
to  her  for  her  signature,  he  applauded  her  insight  in 
so  doing.  A  man  could  hardly  have  suggested  that 
to  the  girl  he  had  but  lately  married ;  it  would  have 
savoured,  would  it  not,  of  his  considering  that  the 
ideal  arrangement  did  not  procure  for  them  their 
own  undiluted  companionship?  But  she  had  known 
that  he  would  not  put  such  a  construction  on  her 
proposition.  She  did  not,  in  fact,  let  an  attitude 
which  would  have  been  typically  feminine  deter  her 
from  adopting  this  more  sensible  and  more  manly 
pose.  But  that  was  Silvia  all  through :  there  was  a 
robust  quality  about  her,  an  impotence  to  harbour 
littlenesses.  .  .  . 

They  expected  another  visitor  that  day  in  the  per- 
son of  Peter's  father,  who  had,  in  a  letter  which  was 
no  less  than  a  bouquet  of  flowering  eloquence,  indi- 
cated that  for  the  due,  the  supreme,  the  sublime  exe- 
cution of  the  second  cartoon,  it  was  necessary  for 
the  artist  to  soak  himself  once  more  in  the  con- 
templation of  the  first,  so  as  (this  was  rather  in- 
volved) to  catch  to  the  fraction  of  a  tone  the  key 
to  which  it  was  pitched.  There  had  to  be  a  gradual 
crescendo,  a  deliberate  tuning  up  and  up,  a  con- 
tinual ascent  throughout  the  series.  .  .  .  Shorn  of 
the  mixture  of  metaphor,  he  wanted  to  study  the 
first  cartoon  before  plunging,  with  the  aid  of  his 
sketches,  into  the  remainder.  These  sketches,  he 
added,  were,  as  soon  as  he  had  finished  with  their 
use,  to  pass  out  of  his  possession,  for  the  charming 
Mrs.  Henry  Wardour  had  induced  him  to  let  her 
imrchase  them  at  a  figure  which  convinced  him  that 
they  would  find  an  appreciative  home.  .  .  ,  Then 
the  letter  became  slightly  mysterious.     The  pro- 


PETER  185 

jected  series  of  cartoons,  he  had  reason  to  know, 
were  exciting  stupendous  interest  in  artistic  circles. 
Flattering — perhaps  a  man  who  was  proud  of  his 
work  ought  not  to  say  flattering — evidence  of  that 
was  to  hand,  evidence  substantial  and  conclusive. 
He  had  not  made — this  was  lucky,  since  he  would 
not  have  dreamed  of  going  back  on  his  bargain — 
he  had  not  made  any  contract  with  Mrs.  Wardour 
— to  whom  all  salutations — about  the  rest  of  the 
series,  and  thought  himself  fortunate  in  not  parting 
with  them  for  a  comparative  pittance.  He  did  not 
(mark  you,  my  Peter)  complain  of  the  price  she  had 
paid  him  for  the  first  of  them,  and  he  was  quite  sure 
that,  with  Peter's  assistance,  everything  would  be 
arranged  quite  satisfactorily. 

Peter  had  read  this  letter,  which  he  must  talk 
over  with  Silvia  on  her  return,  with  the  detachment 
of  which  he  was  so  terribly  capable,  and  had  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  his  father  had  somehow  in- 
duced a  deluded  Croesus  of  some  sort  to  offer  a 
higher  price  per  cartoon  for  the  future  perpetra- 
tions than  that  which  his  mother-in-law  had,  no 
doubt,  already  given  him  for  the  first.  For  this 
deduction  he  had  the  most  cordial  welcome.  As  long 
as  his  father  was  dumping  his  ''beastly"  goods — so 
Peter  was  now  at  liberty  to  think — on  the  picture 
gallery  at  Howes  for  fancy,  if  not  fantastic  prices, 
he  could  not  in  mere  pious  decency  put  it  to  Mrs. 
Wardour  that  she  was  paying,  as  he  supposed,  heav- 
ily, for  colossal  rubbish.  But  his  father's  letter,  ma- 
turely considered,  made  it  quite  certain  that  some- 
body was  willing  to  pay  more  for  rubbish  that  Mrs. 
Wardour.  Already  the  general  question  had  received 
his  attention:  Mrs.  Wardour  was,  so  he  supposed, 
under  contract  to  buy  those  melodramatic  daubs  for 


186  PETER 

the  decoration  of  a  house  that  belonged  to  Silvia,  and 
of  which  he,  by  attested  treaty,  was  master.  So 
long  as  his  father  could  profitably  dispose  of  this 
rubbish  here,  Peter  was  filially  prohibited  from  any 
protest,  but  when  once  his  father  announced  that  he 
was  receiving  a  mere  pittance,  though  without  com- 
plaint, for  what  he  would  in  another  market  receive 
a  less  despicable  dole,  his  son,  surely,  was  free  to 
welcome  his  taking  his  wares  elsewhere.  His  son, 
in  any  case,  was  heart  and  soul  allied  to  the  new 
enterprise,  for  already  Peter  had  experienced  a  vivid 
distaste  of  the  fact  that  he  countenanced,  by  mere 
acquiescence,  this  further  decoration  of  Howes.  He 
knew  that  if  the  artist  had  not  been  his  father  he 
m-ust  have  already  protested  against  the  bargain 
which  perhaps  was  not  yet  complete  on  either  side. 
His  acquiescence,  in  fact,  had  brought  home  to  him 
that  his  father  was  profiting  by  his  marriage.  .  .  . 
Then,  so  swiftly  and  involuntarily  that  he  had  not 
time  to  stop  the  thought  on  the  threshold,  there 
burst  into  the  door  of  his  mind  the  inquiry  as  to 
W'hether  he,  too,  as  well  as  his  father,  was  not  un- 
loading rubbish  at  a  high  price.  And  the  price  that 
he,  Peter,  was  receiving  for  his  rubbish  was  infinitely 
the  higher.  His  father  received,  no  doubt,  a  sub- 
stantial cheque;  he  himself  received,  as  far  as  the 
material  consideration  went,  an  immunity  from  the 
meaning  of  cheques,  and,  in  a  standard  immeasur- 
ably higher,  some  sort  of  blank  cheque  which,  as  Sil- 
via told  him  one  night  (or  was  in  the  middle  of  tell- 
ing him  .when  his  father  made  that  flamboyant  in- 
terruption), would  be  honoured  by  her  to  any  figure 
he  chose  to  fill  in,  and  yet  leave  her  richer,  in  such 
standard,  than  ever.  There,  in  that  immortal  bank, 
he  divined  then,  and  knew  now,  her  illimitable  credit. 


PETER  187 

Whatever  she  paid  out,  by  that,  in  the  royal 
mathematics  of  love,  was  she  the  richer. 

The  impression  made  by  that  unsolicited  thought 
was  to  him  like  having  seen  some  pass-book  of  the 
soul  which  was  hers.  It  had  blown  open  in  front  of 
his  eyes,  and  before  he  had,  so  to  speak,  time  to  close 
it,  he  had  caught  a  glimpse  of  sums  so  vast  that 
they  exceeded  his  powers  of  realization.  His  eye, 
in  that  involuntary  survey,  had  received  no  impres- 
sion of  hi^  payments  into  her  account;  the  credit 
side  was  but  a  catalogue  of  her  own  mconceivable 
affluence.  Every  moment,  it  seemed,  she  was  giving, 
and  every  moment  her  bounty  flowed  back  to  her. 
It  was  with  some  kind  of  sceptical  envy  that,  in  that 
glimpse,  he  realized  this  omnipotent  finance.  It  was 
not  so  marvellous  that  love  should  be  stronger  than 
death;  the  miracle  was  that  it  could  be  so  much 
stronger  than  life. 

It  was  at  this  moment  in  Peter's  reflections,  a 
moment  that,  only  half  realized,  he  was  glad  to  get 
away  from,  that  an  interruption,  reasonably  claim- 
ing his  attention,  occurred  in  the  shape  of  a  little 
old  butler,  who  had  been  drafted  down  here  from 
London  in  view  of  Mrs.  Wardour's  advent.  He  was 
black-eyed  and  grey-headed,  and  "perky"  in  move- 
ment to  an  extent  that  fully  justified  Peter's  ex- 
clamation of  "The  Jackdaw,"  when  he  had  quitted 
the  scene  last  night,  and  now  the  Jackdaw's  imme- 
diate mission  was  to  hand  Peter  a  couple  of  letters 
on  an  immense  silver  salver,  and  inquire  where  Mr. 
Mainwaring,  who,  so  the  Jackdaw  understood,  was 
to  arrive  that  evening,  should  be  "put."  He  should 
be  "put"  clearly,  in  the  place  that  would  please  him 
most,  for  this  was  Peter's  undeviating  creed  when 
self-sacrifice  was  not  involved,  and  beyond  doubt 


188  PETER 

the  state-rooms,  so  called,  would  please  his  father 
inordinately. 

The  state-rooms  had  been  insisted  on  in  the  re- 
building of  the  house  by  his  father-in-law,  in  a  rich 
vision,  so  Silvia  had  half  piously,  half  humorously 
intimated,  of  royal  personages  being  sumptuously 
housed  there.  There  was  a  tremendous  tapestried 
bedroom,  en  suite  with  a  second  bedroom,  a  break- 
fast-room, a  sitting-room,  all  tapestry  and  oak  man- 
telpieces and  silver  scones.  Yes,  the  state-rooms  for 
Mr.  Mainwaring.  Silvia  (they  were  on  humorous 
terms  now  about  Peter's  father)  would  enjoy  that 
immensely. 

Peter  took  his  letters  from  the  Jackdaw,  as  the 
latter  gave  a  pleasant  sort  of  croak  in  answer  to  this 
order,  and  remembered  how  Nellie  had  once  said 
that  wealth  was  not  an  accident,  but  an  attribute,  a 
quality.  He  had  been  disposed  to  dispute  that  at 
the  time,  but  somehow  his  own  allocation  of  the 
state-rooms  to  his  father  confirmed  the  suspicion 
that  she  was  right.  He  himself,  for  instance,  was 
clearly  a  different  person  in  the  eyes  of  his  father 
now,  when  he  could  gloriously  endow  him  with  state- 
rooms, from  what  he  had  been  when  he,  as  on  that 
same  occasion  he  told  Nellie,  only  lived  in  the  beastly 
little  house  off  the  Brompton  Road  because  free 
meals  and  free  lodging  were  a  consideration  to  his 
exiguous  purse.  You  were  different^ — Nellie  was 
right — when  you  could  dispense  material  magnif- 
icence instead  of  accepting- a  tolerable  shelter,  where, 
though  the  rain  was  kept  out,  the  odour  of  dinner, 
with  that  careless  Burrows,  could  not  be  kept  in. 

Still  fingering  his  letters,  and  trying  to  insert  a 
thumb  into  a  too  honestly  adhesive  envelope  flap, 
Peter  slightly  ampHfied  by  corroborative  illustration 


PETER  189 

this  thesis.  How  often  had  he,  so  to  speak,  "sung 
for  his  dinner,"  accepting  and  welcoming  such  invi- 
tations as  Mrs.  Trentham  extended  to  him,  by  which, 
for  the  pleasure  of  comfortable,  decent  food,  he  had 
gladly  spent  an  insincere  and  boring  evening!  It 
had  not  quite  been  greed  combined  with  moderate 
penuriousness  which  had  enjoined  that:  it  was  the 
natural  thing  to  do,  if  you  were  young  and  poor;  to 
dine,  that  is  to  say,  comfortably,  and  by  way  of 
acknowle<:lging  your  indebtedness,  to  be  towed  about 
for  the  rest  of  the  evening  by  a  foolish,  married, 
middle-aged  woman  who,  for  some  inscrutable  rea- 
son of  her  own,  wanted  to  present  her  unblemished 
reputation  in  some  sort  of  compromising  limelight. 
But  now,  on  this  opulent  sunny  afternoon,  Peter 
tried  in  vain  to  recapture  the  mood,  once  habitual 
to  him,  of  accepting  any  invitation  merely  because 
it  implied  a  good  dinner  and  perhaps  a  good  sup- 
per, with  a  boring  opera  in  between.  Certainly  it 
had  been  easy  for  him  to  fulfill  his  part  of  the  bar- 
gain in  these  evenings:  it  was  natural  and  also  hab- 
itual for  him  to  make  himself  pleasant,  to  look  hand- 
some, to  tell  Mrs.  Trentham  that  she  had  never  been 
so  marvellous,  so  chic,  so  smart,  so  entrancing  gen- 
erally. But  now  the  mere  notion  of  such  an  evening 
seemed  foreign.  If  he  wanted  to  dine  at  the  Ritz 
and  go  to  the  opera  and  have  some  supper,  he  could 
do  it,  and  secure  as  guests  just  those  with  whom  it 
was  pleasant  to  spend  an  evening.  Henceforth  if  he 
wanted  to  do  that  he  could,  vulgarly  speaking,  "pick 
and  choose"  the  recipients  of  his  bounty.  .  .  .  Stated 
like  that  the  whole  thing  sounded  rather  sordid,  but 
it  seemed  to  him  that,  for  himself,  he  had  got  rid  of 
that  sordidness,  the  "court-fool-touch"  which  com- 
pelled you  to  make  jokes  in  payment  for  your  din- 


190  PETER 

ner,  or  (which  was  worse)  to  talk  to  your  hostess 
in  the  serious,  wistful  note  of  an  adorer,  or  at  any 
rate  of  a  dazzled  and  delighted  guest.  To  be  host, 
to  pay  the  bill,  provided  you  had  plenty -of  money, 
was  far  the  easier  part. 

There  it  was -then:  he  had  no  longer  to  be  asked 
to  dine  at  the  Ritz,  and  to  go  to  the  theatre  or  what 
not  afterwards.  He  could  bid  to  his  feasts  and  no 
more  consider  the  expense,  than  in  the  old  days  he 
would  have  considered  whether  he  could  afford  a 
bus  fare.  Whatever  enjoyments  of  that  kind  the 
world  had  to  offer  were  his  for  the  mere  formation 
of  his  inclination  to  enjoy  them.  .  .  .  And  then, 
suddenly  as  a  blink  of  distant  lightning,  and,  so  it 
seemed,  wholly  independent  of  his  own  brain,  there 
came  the  question  as  to  what  he  had  paid  for  these 
privileges.  And  remote  as  drowsy  thunder,  the  ques- 
tion supplied  its  own  indubitable  answer.  He  had 
somehow — the  thing  was  done^ — convinced  SilVia 
that  he  loved  her.  He  had,  at  any  rate,  given  her  the 
signal  of  response  that  had  ecstatically,  rapturously 
contented  her,  when,  below  her  breath,  as  she  ac- 
cepted him  as  her  lover,  she  had  whispered,  ''Ah,  just 
let  me  love  you,  all  I  want  is  to  love  you,  to  be 
allowed  to  love  you."  .  .  .  He  had  known  quite  well 
what  that  "allow"  really  implied.  He  had  to  be  on 
the  same  plane  of  emotion  as  she;  else,  to  her  un- 
derstanding of  it  all,  they  could  never  have  arrived 
at  this. 

All  the  time  (he  knew  that  then,  and  knew  it  infi- 
nitely better  now)  her  level  shone  in  sunlight  like 
some  peak  far  above  the  clouds,  compared  to  his  little 
wooded  hill  that  drowsed  in  the  grey  day  below  them. 
Round  him  there  was  no  gleam  of  that  ethereal 
brightness  in  which  she  walked,  or,  at  the  most. 


PETER  191 

through  some  rent  in  the  clouds,  he  caught  a  glimpse 
of  her.  She,  at  present,  so  it  appeared  to  him,  was 
so  encompassed  with  brightness  that,  dazzled,  she 
took  for  granted  that  he  was  with  her,  and  indeed, 
by  some  device  of  desire  and  of  cleverness  on  his 
part,  he  could  convince  her  that  through  the  clasp 
of  their  hands  there  throbbed  the  sweet  entangle- 
ment of  the  soul.  She  interpreted  his  lightest  action, 
his  words,  his  glances,  by  some  magic  of  her  own; 
but  already  he  knew  that  he,  though  with  consum- 
mate care,  was  "keeping  it  up."  There  was  no  ele- 
ment of  difficulty  about  it,  any  more  than  there  had 
been  any  difficulty  about  behaving  to  the  complete 
satisfaction  of  Mrs.  Trentham  at  her  Ritz-Opera  en- 
tertainments. But  in  both  roles,  as  guest  at  the  Ritz 
and  as  "master"  of  Howes,  there  was  an  inherent 
falsity.  In  both  he  was  dressed  up  for  the  part.  The 
difference  between  the  two  situations  was  that  in 
the  one  Mrs.  Trentham  was  dressed  up  too,  and  in 
the  other  Silvia  was  not. 

Peter  was  quite  ruthless  in  tearing  the  motley 
off  from  himself,  and  contemplating  with  the  can- 
didness  of  a  true  egoist  the  revealed  deformities.  He 
never  cultivated  illusions  about  himself,  nor  strove 
to  soften  down  his  own  uncomeliness.  There  he 
was ;  that  was  he,  to  make  the  best  or  the  worst  of. 
He  did  not  on  the  other  hand,  try  to  depreciate  his 
assets;  he  tried,  in  fact,  to  make  the  most  of  them 
and  use  them  to  the  utmost  possible  advantage.  He 
was,  and  knew  it,  a  marvellous  physical  type,  hand- 
some as  the  young  Hermes,  and  crowned  with  the 
glory  and  flower  of  adolescence.  He  surrendered  to 
Silvia  all  that  physical  perfection;  he  gave  her  the 
wit  and  ch-arm  of  his  mind;  and  he  was  aware  that 
with  these  he  dazzled  her  much  in  the  same  way  as 


192  PETER 

Nellie  had  dazzled  her.  The  use  and  the  enjoyment 
of  them,  utterly  at  her  service,  was  responsible  for 
the  splendid  success  of  this  solitary  fortnight. 

In  spite  of  the  divine  conditions  of  these  golden 
country  days,  he  knew  that  he  was  not  sorry  to  be 
enjoying  the  last  of  them.  To-morrow  he  had  to  get 
back  to  his  work,  and  this  sword  of  his,  body  and 
mind,  would  be  sheathed  for  intervals  of  absence. 
And  then,  with  the  sure  certainty  of  apprehension 
that  had  stamped  out  these  conclusions,  he  knew 
that  it  was  not  for  these  alone,  or  even  for  these  at 
all,  that  Silvia  had  loved  him.  At  the  most  they 
were  for  her  the  bright-plumaged  lure,  to  which  her 
attentio.n  had  been  originally  attracted.  But  even 
in  the  first  moments  of  this  attention  she  had  di- 
vined something  in  him,  below  the  feathers  and  the 
fur,  which  she  sought.  Her  quest  had  gone  deeper 
than  skin  and  conversation,  than  glances  and  smiles 
and  level  shoulders  and  firm  neck,  and  quick  re- 
sponse, and  humour  and  all  the  lures  of  the  male  for 
the  female.  She  had  claimed  and  clasped  him  for 
something  other  than  what  certainly  appeared  to  her 
as  mere  appurtenances.  And  what  on  his  side  had 
he  looked  for  in  her?  Nothing,  so  he  branded  it  on 
himself,  except  her  mere  physical  attraction,  her 
mere  mental  charm  and  freshness  and  her  wealth. 

But  the  admission  of  this  was  a  branding:  the 
hot  iron  hurt  him,  and,  not  liking  to  be  hurt,  he 
recollected  the  le+ters  which,  a  few  minutes  ago, 
the  Jackdaw  had  presented  to  him,  and  which — the 
first  of  them,  upside  down  in  his  hand — was  so  hon- 
estly gummed  that  he  could  make  no  insertion  into 
its  flap. 

He  turned  it  over  and  saw  the  handwriting  of  the 
address.    He  managed  then  to  open  it. 


PETER  193 

"Isn't  it  delightful  to  be  married?"  wrote  Nellie. 
"I  didn't  write  to  you  at  first,  Peter,  because  you 
wouldn't  have  enjoyed  anything  that  came  from  out- 
side. But  after  a  fortnight,  you  ought  to  be  able 
to  be  congratulated.  Before  that  it  would  have  been 
merely  impertinent  (and  probably  is  now) ;  but  your 
friends  have  to  take  up  the  threads  again  sometime. 
All  we  blissful  people,  in  fact,  must  remember  that 
we  are  human  beings,  after  all,  and  break  ourselves 
into  'behavin'  according'  (Mrs.  Gamp,  isn't  it?  No, 
I  don't  think  it  is).  Anyhow,  we  shall  all  meet 
again,  shan't  we,  and  buzz  about  in  London,  and  ask 
each  other  to  our  lovely  country  houses.  We've  got 
to  go  on,  Peter;  the  world  has  got  to  go  on.  Hasn't 
it?" 

Peter  turned  a  page,  and  began  to  be  quite  ab- 
sorbed in  this  new  but  familiar  atmosphere.  He 
slipped  out  of  his  present  environment  under  some 
spell  which  lurked  in  these  trivialities. 

"I'm  getting  on  beautifully,"  so  began  the  sec- 
ond page,  "for  Philip  and  I  understand  each  other  so 
well,  and  it's  tremendously  comfortable.  We  seem 
to  want  just  the  same  sort-  of  thing.  He's  awfully 
keen  about  birds,  for  instance,  and  I  am  becoming 
so.  We  go  out  with  field-glasses,  and  see  willow- 
wrens,  and  yesterday  we  saw  a  marsh-warbler.  Then 
I  like  golf — you  always  hated  it,  I  remember — so 
Philip  is  learning  to  like  it  too.  He  nearly  lost  his 
temper  yesterday  when  he  missed  a  short  putt, 
and  that's  always  a  good  sign.  We  don't  quite  agree 
about  motoring,  because  I  always  want  to  go  as  fast 
as  the  machine  can  manage,  and  he  always  wants  to 
slow  down  when  there's  a  cross-road.  He  talks  to 
the  chauffeur  through  a  beastly  little  tube,  and  it's 
like  a  funeral. 


194  PETER 

"Peter  darling,  what  rot  I  am  writing.  Fancy  my 
writing  such  rot  to  you.  It's  the  wrong  sort  of  rot, 
isn't  it?  There  are  rots  and  rots.  You  and  I 
always  used  to  talk  rot,  but  it  wasn't  about  birds  and 
golf.  (I'm  having  a  new  sort  of  mashie.)  But,  bar 
rot,  when  are  we  going  to  meet  again?  Isn't  the 
country  a  sleepy  place?  Do  come  up  to  town  soon, 
and  Philip  and  I  will  come  up,  too.  (You  and  Sil- 
via, I  mean,  of  course.)  I  want  to  be  in  the  silly 
old  thick  of  it  again.  Because  when  you're  in  the 
thick  of  it  you  can  .make  privacies,  but  when  you're 
in  the  privacy  of  the  country  you  can't  make  a  thick, 
except  when  you  have  a  great  house-party,  as  we're 
going  to  have  next  week,  and  that  isn't  really  a 
'thick' :  it's  only  partridges.  The  men  go  out  in  the 
morning,  and  the  women  join  them  for  lunch,  and 
then  the  men  come  home  in  the  evening,  and  the 
morning  and  evening  are  the  first  day.  But  it's  aU 
extremely  comfortable — that's  the  word  I  come  back 
to.  Mother  has  been  here  for  the  last  three  weeks, 
and  she's  almost  ceased  saying  that  she  must  go 
away  the  day  after  to-morrow.  I  suppose  that's 
because  she's  tired  of  hearing  either  Philip  or  me 
murmur  something  about  its  being  such  a  short 
visit.  P.  and  I  really  both  like  her  being  with  us: 
it  isn't  half  a  bad  plan,  and  I  expect  she'll  stop  till 
we  go  back  to  town  again. 

"I  want  you  and  Silvia  to  come  over  here  on 
November  10th  for  the  week-end.  There  will  be 
hosts  of  rather  nice  people  here:  so  many,  in  fact, 
that  you  and  I  can  steal  away  without  being  noticed, 
and  have  a  scamper  through  the  wet  woods  (they  are 
sure  to  be  wet  in  November)  and  wave  our  tails 
and  congratulate  ourselves  on  being  settled  for  life. 
We've  both  of  us  got  somebody  to  take  care  of  us 


PETER  195 

(Yes,  I  mean  that),  and  if  you're  as  pleased  with  the 
arrangement  as  I  am,  why,  we're  very  lucky  people. 
You  and  I,  you  know,  if  .things  had  been  utterly  and 
completely  different,  would  have  quarrelled  so  fright- 
fully. ...  I  saw  two  cats  yesterday  sitting  with 
their  faces  within  an  inch  of  each  other,  scowling 
and  screeching  at  each  other  in  a  perfect  tempest  of 
irritation. 

''Here's  Philip  come  to  take  me  out.  He  will  sit 
in  the  chair  there  waiting  quite  placidly  till  I  have 
finished  this  letter,  not  reading  the  paper  or  doing 
anything  at  all,  but  just  waiting.  He  knows  where 
there  are  a  pair  of  golden  crested  wrens.  Isn't  that 
exciting?  .  .  .  Oh,  I  can't  go  on  with  him  sitting 
there.  Good-bye,  my  dear.  Mind  you  and  Silvia 
come  on  the  10th." 

As  Peter  read,  he  heard,  by  some  internal  audi- 
tion, Nellie's  voice  enunciating  the  sentences  with 
that  familiar  intonation  of  light  staccato  mockery. 
The  written  words  were  but  like  a  prompter's  copy 
which  he  held  and  glanced  at;  it  was  Nellie  who 
stood  there  and  said  the  lines.  He  would  have  liked 
to  argue  a  point  or  two  with  her,  but  he  knew  that 
there  was  between  them  that  deep  fundamental 
agreement  and  comprehension  without  which  argu- 
ment develops  into  mere  contradiction.  .  .  . 

Peter  thrust  the  letter  into  his  pocket  as  steps 
sounded  on  the  gravel  just  behind  him. 

"Been  sitting  here  ever  since  I  left  you?"  asked 
Silvia.  "Oh,  Peter,  without  your  hat  in  this  hot 
sun!" 

She  picked  it  up  and  perched  it  on  his  head. 

"There!     Oh, ; what  a  nuisance  it  is  that  this  is 


196  PETER 

your  last  day  here.  But  what  a  last  day.  Any  l-et- 
ters?" 

Peter's  hand  fingered  Nellie's  letter. 

"Yes:  one  from  Nellie,"  he  said.  "She  wants  you 
and  me  to  go  there  for  the  week-end  on  November 
10th.    Shall  we?" 

"Oh,  how  unkind  of  her?  What  are  we  to  do? 
Shall  we  say  that  Mother  will  be  here  for  that  Sun- 
day? It  will  be  quite  true  in  its  way,  though  it 
won't  mean  precisely  what  she  thinks  it  means." 

Peter  looked  at  her  below  the  rim  of  his  straw 
hat.  She  had  placed  it  rather  forward  over  his  fore- 
head, and  as  she  stood  beside  his  chair  he  had  to 
incline  his  head  sharply  back,  so  that  the  muscles 
at  the  side  of  his  neck  stood  out  below  the  sun- 
browned  skin.  She  came  a  step  closer  and  held  his 
throat  between  thumb  and  fingers. 

"What  shall  we  tell  her?"  she  asked.  "Speak,  or 
I'll  strangle  you." 

"Strangle  away!"  he  said. 

"I  would  sooner  you  spoke,"  she  said.  "I  don't 
want  to  murder  you  just  yet.  So  unpleasant  for 
mother." 

"Whether  it's  unpleasant  for  me  or  not  doesn't 
seem  to  matter,"  said  Peter  throatily,  for  Silvia  in- 
creased the  pressure  of  her  hand. 

"Not  a  bit,  darling,"  said  she.  "I  shall  squeeze 
tighter  and  tighter  until  you  tell  me  what  we  shall 
say  to  Nellie." 

"Brute!"  said  Peter.  "Don't  do  it,  Silvia.  You're 
hurting  me  frightfully." 

He  wrinkled  up  his  forehead  and  drew  in  his 
breath  quickly,  as  if  in  great  pain.  Instantly  Silvia 
took  her  hand  away. 


PETER  197 

"Oh,  my  dear,  I  haven't  really  hurt  you?"  she 
asked  with  compunction. 

"Once  upon  a  time,"  said  Peter,  "there  was  a 
woman  who  believed  every  word  that  her  husband 
said." 

Silvia  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  the  long  chair. 

"Was?  There  is  one,"  she  said.  "If  you  told  me 
you  hated  me,  I  should  believe  you." 

"I  hate  you,"  said  Peter  promptly. 

"You  didn't  say  that,"  said  she.  "Your  mouth  said 
it.  What  are  we  to  tell  Nellie?  Seriously,  I  mean. 
It  will  be  nearly  our  last  Sunday  here,  if  we  go  to 
London  in  December." 

Peter  made  a  short  calculation. 

"Dear  Nellie,"  he  said,  "we  are  so  sorry  we  can't 
come,  because  November  10th  will  be  our  last  even- 
ing but  twenty-one  alone  here,  as  we  go  up  to  town 
the  next  month.    Will  that  do?" 

"It  sounds  perfectly  sensible,"  said  Silvia.  She'll 
understand :  it  wasn't  so  long  ago  that  she  was  mar- 
ried. Then  you'll  write  that,  will  you?"  she  added 
hopefully. 

"I  will  if  you  really  wish  it,"  said  he;  "but  it's 
not  very  sane.  You  see  .  .  .  well,  some  time  we've 
got  to  begin  behaving  like  ordinary  human  beings 
again.  And,  after  all,  Nellie  is  a  very  old  friend  of 
mine,  and  a  very  intimate  one  of  yours.  She'll  think 
it  rather  odd." 

Silvia  sighed. 

"A  whole  Saturday  to  Monday,"  she  said.  "How 
selfish  Nellie  is.  I  never  knew  that  before.  But 
perhaps  we  had  better  go.  Shall  I  answer  it  for 
you?" 

Peter  got  up. 

"No;  I  must  write  to  her  in  any  case,"  he  said. 


198  PETER 

"What  else  does  she  say?"  asked  Silvia.  ''No 
message  for  me?" 

Peter  could  not  definitely  remember  any,  but  there 
was  sure  to  have  been  such. 

"Of  course :  all  sorts  of  things.  Come  for  a  stroll, 
Silvia.  I'm  getting  chilly  in  the  shade  of  my  straw 
hat.  There's  another  thing  I  want  to  talk  over  with 
you.    Let's  go  down  by  the  lake!" 

"Hurrah !    I  love  being  consulted.    What  is  it?" 

"It's  about  my  father.  Oh,  by  the  way,  the  Jack- 
daw asked  me  where  he  should  be  put,  and  I  said  the 
state-rooms.    Is  that  all  right?" 

Silvia  pinched  his  arm. 

"When  are  you  going  to  understand  that  you  are 
the  master?"  she  said.  "Oh,  Peter,  it  will  be  lovely 
for  him  having  the  state-rooms.  He'll  like  it  tremen- 
dously. Won't  he?  I  wish  I  had  thought  of  it. 
It  wasn't  that,  I  hope,  that  you  wanted  to  consult 
me  about." 

"No.  Now,  before  I  consult  you,  I  want  to  ask 
you  a  question  or  two,  which  you  must  promise  to 
answer  not  tactfully,  but  truly." 

"Not  even  a  little  tact,  if  I  find  it  necessary?" 
she  asked. 

"Not  an  atom.    Do  you  like  that  cartoon  of  his?" 

Silvia  glanced  sideways  at  him. 

"Well — I  don't  find  I  go  and  look  at  it  for  pleas- 
ure," she  said.  "Not  often  at  least,  not  every  day. 
Do  you  like  it?" 

"I  think  it's  the  most  colossal  piece  of  rubbish  I 
ever  saw.    Now  try  again  to  express  your  opinion." 

Silvia  gave  a  sigh  of  relief. 

"Oh,  I  do  agree!"  she  said.  "It's  the  most  appal- 
ling.   Now,  isn't  it?" 

"Question  number  two,"  said  Peter.     "Do  you 


PETER  199 

think  you  will  like  the  others  any  better?  Do  you, 
in  fact,  look  forward  to  seeing  the  whole  wall  of  the 
gallery  covered  with  allegorical  Mainwarings?" 

"Not  in  the  very  smallest  degree.  But  we've  got 
to  have  them,  haven't  we?" 

"I  don't  think  so,"  said  he.  "In  fact,  from  a  letter 
I  have  received  from  my  father,  I  gather  that  he 
doesn't  consider  he  made  a  contract  for  them  at  all. 
It's  clear  from  what  he  says  that  somebody  else 
wants  to  buy  them  at  a  higher  rate,  considerably 
higher,  than  your  mother  paid  for  the  first.  In  fact, 
he  alludes  to  the  price  she  paid  for  it  as  a  pittance. 
By  the  way,  what  did  she  pay  for  it?" 

Silvia  looked  sideways  at  him  again. 

"Do  you  really  want  me  to  tell  you?"  she  asked. 

"If  you  don't  mind." 

"Well,  she  gave  him  a  thousand  guineas  for  it, 
Peter.  I  rather  wish  he  hadn't  called  it  a  pittance; 
it  makes  mother  seem  mean.  He  was  quite  willing 
to  accept  it.  And  I  don't  suppose — do  you? — that 
he  sells  much  at  that  sort  of  price?" 

"And  the  rest  of  the  unspeakable  six  at  the  same 
price?"  asked  Peter. 

"I  suppose  so.    Mother  understood  so,"  said  she. 

"And  does  she  want  to  have  them?"  asked  Peter. 

"No.  I  don't  think  she  does,  very  much,"  said  Sil- 
via. "She  spoke  to-day  of  'my  cartoons' — wasn't 
that  darling  of  her? — when  I  said  your  father  was 
coming  this  evening.  But  I  think  I  could  explain  to 
her  that  she  needn't  have  them ;  if  I  do  it  the  right 
way,  she  won't  think  she  wants  them.  But  what 
about  the  one  we've  got?" 

"Sell  it  back  to  him  at  the  price  she  gave  for  it," 
said  Peter. 


200  PETER 

Silvia  seemed  to  consider  this  simple  proposition 
rather  intently. 

"Yes,  perhaps  she  would  do  that,"  she  said,  with- 
out much  conviction  as  to  its  probability.  "Oh, 
Peter,  haven't  we  got  rather  odd  parents?" 

"I  have;  but  why  have  you,  except  in  so  far  that 
it  was  odd  to  give  a  thousand  guineas  for  that  mon- 
strosity? I'm  delighted  at  the  prospect  of  getting 
rid  of  it,  not  only,  and  not  chiefly,  because  it's  an 
atrocious  object,  but  because  I  hate  the  idea  of  my 
father  imposing  upon  your  mother  and  then  talking 
about  a  pittance.  He  would  have  jumped  at  selling 
it  in  an  auction  room  for  a  quarter  of  what  she  paid. 
1  wonder  who  can  have  offered  him  more  for  it.  Oh, 
by  the  way.  Aunt  Eleanor  has  bought  his  sketches 
for  the  cartoons," 

Silvia  burst  out  laughing. 

"Then  Aunt  Joanna  has  bought  the  cartoons 
themselves,"  she  said.  "But  don't  suggest  that  to 
mother.  Or  rather,  if  you  want  me  to  talk  about  it 
all  to  her,  I  won't.  Aunt  Joanna,  you  see,  wants  to, 
what  they  call  wipe  mother's  eye.  I'm  quite  certain 
of  it.  And  if  mother  got  wind  of  it,  she  wouldn't 
part  with  that  wretched  picture  for  a  million." 

"But  how  odd " 

"Yes;  that's  her  oddness.  I  said  we  had  got  odd 
parents.  And  I  doubt — at  least,  there's  no  doubt 
about  it  at  all — whether  she  will  let  your  father  have 
back  the  one  cartoon  that  she  has  got  for  what  she 
paid  for  it.  She  doesn't  want  any  money,  and  she's 
as  generous  as  she  can  be,  bless  her,  but  she  won't 
be  'done.'  The  picture  is  hers,  and  she  won't  let 
him  have  it  back  at  a  penny  less  than  he -is  going  to 
receive  for  it.  Oh,  let's  talk  about  something  more 
interesting.    Anyhow,  you  and  I  don't  want  the  car- 


PETER  201 

toon  we've  got,  or  any  more  like  it.  But  people 
are  so  queer,  and  I  love  their  queernesses:  they 
are  part  of  them.  After  all,  the  queernesses  in  peo- 
ple are  exactly  what  makes  their  individuality. 
You're  queer,  I'm  queer." 

"WTiy  am  I  queer?"  demanded  Peter. 

"I've  told  you  so  often,"  said  she. 

Peter  guessed  at  that  what  his  imputed  queei:- 
ness  was.  It  was  true  that  she  had  told  him  often, 
but  it  was  true  also  that  there  was  a  thing  which  a 
lover  was  never  tired  of  repeating. 

"Never:  neverionce,"  said  he. 

"As  if  I  wasn't  doing  it  all  day,"  she  said.  "Tak- 
ing advantage,  I  mean,  of  your  queerness — not  mere- 
ly telling  you  about  it  directly,  but  being  so  much 
more  direct  than  just  telling  you.  What's  your 
queerness,  indeed,  if  it  isn't  that  you  allow  me  to  be 
queer,  just  because  you  are?" 

"You've  changed  the  subject,"  said  he.  "You're 
talking  about  your  queerness  now." 

"It's  all  the  same  queerness,"  she  said. 

Peter  could  squint  more  atrociously  than  most 
people,  and  now,  looking  at  Silvia,  he  allowed  him- 
self to  contemplate  the  end  of  his  nose.  Silvia 
couldn't  stand  this  trick,  and  a  nonsensical  ritual  had 
built  itself  up  upon  it. 

"Oh,  Peter,  put  your  eyes  back!"  she  cried. 

"I  can't.     They've  stuck.     Push  them  back  for 


me. 


He  shut  his  eyes,  and  Silvia  stroked  the  lids  from 
the  nose  outwards. 

"They  will  stick  some  day,"  she  said,  "and  then 
I  shall  divorce  you." 

Peter  looked  at  her  straight  again. 

"Go  on  about  the  queerness,"  he  said. 


202  PETER 

"Yours  or  mine?"  she  asked. 

"You  said  they  were  the  same." 

"They  are  in  a  way.  But  your  queemess  is  much 
the  queerest.  For  it  was  I  whom  you  loved.  What 
I  did  wasn't  queer;  anything  else  would  have  been 
not  queer,  but  imbecile.  .  .  .  Peter,  don't  ever  be 
tired  of  knowing  how  awfully  I  love  you.  If  you're 
not  there,  the  thought  of  it  frightens  me;  there's 
something  crushing  about  it.  But  when  you  are 
with  me,  the  only  thing  that  frightens  me  is  the 
thought  that  it  shouldn't  be  so.  But  why  on  earth 
you're  like  that^ — like  me,  I  mean — that's  what  is  so 
incomprehensible.  Me,  you  know :  this  bit  of  noth- 
ing at  all." 

Peter  became  aware,  more  consciously  than 
through  the  hints  he  had  previously  been  cognizant 
of,  how,  though  Silvia's  level  was  some  sun-basked 
plateau  far  above  him,  he  welcomed  and  spread  him- 
self in  the  gleams  that  came  to  him.  There  was  a 
splendour  in  being  loved  like  that,  and  at  this  mo- 
ment the  inherent  falsity  of  his  position  was  just 
burned  out  by  that  consuming  ray.  Her  love,  not  in 
the  least  masculine,  was  yet  male  in  its  adoring  self- 
surrender  ;  his,  as  regards  her,  though  not  in  the  least 
feminine,  was  female  in  its  reception  of  it.  There 
v/as  an  ecstasy  in  being  adored  by  so  magnificent  a 
lover.  Even  as  in  material  ways,  she  showered  her- 
self on  the  Danae  for  whom,  in  their  drama,  he  was 
cast,  so  in  the  subtler  and  splendid  beauty  of  the 
soul,  she  poured  herself  out  in  a  love  that  passed  the 
love  of  woman.  And  that  very  quality,  here 
triumphantly  shining,  drew  out  the  essential  fra^ 
grance  of  his. 

"More,"  he  said,  "more  nothing  at  all." 


PETER  203 

She  seemed  to  step  from  her  height  at  that,  divmg 
down  to  him,  entrancingly  tender. 

"That's  all  there  is,  my  darling,"  she  said.  "If 
you  want  more  than  I've  got,  you  must  teach  it  me. 
Now  I  won't  be  absurd  any  longer.  Look,  there's  a 
moorhen!" 

This  was  quite  in  the  habitual  manner.  Like  a 
lark,  she  sang  for  so  long  as  she  was  in  the  air,  then 
folded  her  wings  and  dropped  to  her  nest.  The  sing- 
ing was  over,  and  it  left  her  panting  with  the  ecstasy 
of  it.  But  Peter,  to  continue  that  metaphor,  re- 
ceived something  of  a  shock;  he  had  not  known  she 
would  so  swiftly  come  to  ground.  Yet  that  sudden 
dip  was  equally  characteristic  of  him;  he  probably 
had  shown  her  the  trick  of  it,  for  often  he  had  done 
just  that.  The  sky,  after  all,  extended  to  the  actual 
ground:  there  was  no  intermediate  element. 

"It's  a  coot,"  he  said. 

"I  don't  care.  I  only  hope  it's  happy,"  said  she. 
"Oh,  my  dear,  there's  the  bell  for  lunch,  and  we're 
half  a  mile  from  the  house.  The  Jackdaw  will  peck 
us  for  being  late." 

"Not  our  fault.  The  lake  shouldn't  have  been  so 
long." 

"We  might  fill  some  of  it  up,"  said  she.  "Let's 
talk  sensibly.  What  were  we  saying  before  you 
began  to  talk  nonsense?  Oh,  yes,  pictures,  pit- 
tance  " 

"Papa,"  said  he. 

"Peter.  ...  I  can't  think  of  any  more." 

"Peter's  papa  purchases  the  picture  he  sold  for  a 
pittance,"  said  he.  "American  headlines.  Make 
another." 

This  sort  of  monkey-gj'mnastics  of  the  mind,  at 
which  Peter  and  Nellie  and  all  the  rest  of  them  so 


204  PETER 

fluently  excelled,  was  always  productive  in  Silvia  of 
an  intense  gravity ;  she  made  her  contributions  with 
effort,  struggle,  and  bewilderment,  amazed  at  how 
quickly  everybody  else — everybody  else  was  so  clever 
— made  words  out  of  words,  and  reeled  off  the  names 
of  eminent  men  which  began  with  an  X.  .  .  . 

"Something  about  mother,"  said  she  with  knitted 
brows.  "I  must  manage — oh,  Peter,  isn't  that  good? 
— I  must  manage  to  make  mother " 

Peter  giggled. 

"That's  not  the  right  form,"  he  said.  "You  must 
get  the  right  form.  Let's  see.  'Millionaire  mother 
manages  to  make — to  make — oh,  yes — money  on  Mr. 
Mainwaring's  monstrosity/ "  he  finished  up  in  a 
great  hurry. 

"Oh,  Peter,  how  lovely!"  said  she.  "How  do  you 
doit?    And  why  can't  I?" 

Mr.  Mainwaring  rose  magnificently  to  his  tenancy 
of  the  state-rooms,  feeling  that  it  had  been  a  very 
proper  arrangement  to  put  him  there.  Here  was  the 
father  of  the  master  of  Howes  paying  a  visit  to  his 
son ;  here,  too,  in  the  same  earthly  vesture,  was  the 
creator  of  the  great  cartoons  which,  among  all  the 
futile  crosses  and  cenotaphs  and  hysterical  verse  and 
prose,  were  not  unworthy  of  the  heroic  history  which 
they  commemorated.  With  the  same  abandoned 
thoroughness  with  which  he  could  be,  when  suit- 
able, the  rollicking,  jovial  boy,  hungry  for  his  tea, 
OT  the  light-hearted  robust-throated  Toreador,  so, 
now  he  saw  in  the  assignation  of  the  state-rooms 
to  his  occupancy  a  very  proper  and  touching  homage 
on  the  part  of  Peter  and  Silvia,  or  Mrs.  Wardour 
(or  more  probably  on  their  joint  acclamation)  to  the 
sovereignty  of  his  Art.    These  pleasant  reflections 


PETER  205 

that  accompanied  the  appreciative  exploration  of 
his  territory  suggested  that  there  was,  so  to  speak,  a 
little  state  business  to  be  done,  the  nature  of  which 
he  believed  he  had  adequately  indicated  to  Peter. 
Peter,  good  lad,  would  no  doubt  have  attended  to 
it,  and  it  would  be  well  for  him  to  give  his  report. 

Probably  it  was  as  much  the  desire  of  having  this 
conversation  with  Peter  secure  from  interruption  as 
anything  else  that  caused  him  to  send  a  message  to 
his  son  that  Mr.  iMainwaring  would  be  much  obliged 
if  he  would  spare  him  a  few  minutes  in  the  state- 
rooms before  dressing  time;  but  it  certainly  fitted 
in  pleasantly  with  his  sovereignty  that  Peter  should 
be  requested  to  present  himself,  and  that  Mr.  Main- 
waring  should  be  stationed  on  a  Spanish  throne  of 
brocade  and  gilded  wood-work. 

He  waved  Peter  to  a  seat.  Peter  seemed  to  prefer 
to  perch  himself  on  the  tall  steel  fireguard.  He 
divined  with  sufiicient  accuracy  his  father's  pose,  and 
was  partly  amused,  partly  irritated.  Silvia  would 
have  been  wholly  amused. 

"Hope  you'll  be  comfortable  here,  father,"  he  said. 

Mr.  Mainwaring  glanced  round  him. 

"Yes,  indeed,"  he  said.  "1  shall  do  very  well. 
Ah,  by  the  way,  before  we  get  to  business,  I  have  a 
letter  from  your  mother  which  she  asked  me  to  give 
you.  Perhaps  you  would  hand  me  my  despatch 
case.    .    .    .    Here  it  is." 

Peter  was  lighting  a  cigarette,  and  spoke  between 
the  puffs. 

"Right.    I'll  take  it  when  I  go,"  he  said. 

His  father  looked  at  the  tapestried  walls. 

"My  dear  boy,"  he  said,  "I  don't  know  if  I  am 
right  to  allow  you  to  smoke  here." 


206  PETER 

Peter  dropped  his  match  on  the  carpet.  He  did 
that  on  purpose. 

''Oh,  don't  bother  about  that,"  he  said.  "I  allow 
myself.  Now  I  suppose  you  want  to  talk  to  me 
about  that  cartoon?" 

"You  got  my  letter?  You  have  arranged  what  I 
indicated?" 

Peter  felt  his  irritation  gaining  on  him. 

"Well,  your  letter  was  rather — rather  involved, 
rather  vague  and  magnificent,"  he  said.  "What 
Silvia  and  I  made  out  of  it  was  that  you  had  been 
offered  a  higher  price  for  work  that  Mrs.  Wardour 
had  commissioned  you  to  do  for  her,  and  wanted  to 
call  it  off.    That  seemed  to  be  the  general  drift  of  it." 

"No;  there  was  no  definite  commission,"  said  he. 
"I  mentioned  that." 

"Mrs.  Wardour  was  under  the  impression  that 
there  was.  But  that,  I  think,  can  be  arranged,  for 
the  series  was  intended — commissioned  or  not  doesn't 
matter — to  hang  in  the  gallery  here.  This  is  Silvia's 
house,  you  see,  and  in  a  way  mine,  so  that  if  we 
consent  there  will  be — under  certain  conditions — no 
difficulty  with  my  mother-in-law.  Silvia  has  talked 
to  her  about  it.  We  cordially  consent,  father.  We 
are  both  quite  willing  that  you  should  paint  the  rest 
of  the  series  for  somebody  else." 

Mr.  Mainwaring  could  find  no  fault  with  the  sub- 
stance of  the  speech;  indeed,  it  gave  him  precisely 
what  he  was  wanting.  But,  in  spite  of  Peter's 
neutrality  of  statement,  he  found  it  dealing  some 
dastardly  wound  to  his  vanity. 

"Ha!  You  and  Silvia,  it  appears,  don't  want  the 
great  series,"  he  remarked. 

"But  apparently  somebody  else  does,"  said  Peter. 
"And  you  said  in  your  letter  that  they  were  exciting 


PETER  207 

a  stupendous  interest  in  artistic  circles.    That's  all 
right,  then;  we  are  very  glad." 

*'Yes,  glad  to  get  rid  of  them/'  said  the  insatiable 
one. 

Peter  practically  never  lost  his  temper.  He  used 
it  as  a  stored-up  force.  But  certainly  the  sight  of 
his  father,  looking  like  Zeus  on  the  Spanish  throne, 
did  not  predispose  him  to  exert  his  habitual  pleas- 
antness. 

"You  are,  of  course,  at  liberty  to  make  any  com- 
ments you  choose,"  he  said.  "You  are  vexed  with 
me  because  I  give  you  your  way  quite  willingly 
instead  of  reluctantly.  By  the  way,  don't  tell  me, 
and  in  particular  don't  tell  Mrs.  Wardour,  whether 
the  'artistic  circles'  is  another  expression  for  Lady 
Darley.  If  it  is,  I  think  it  highly  probable  that  she 
would  refuse  to  let  you  have  back  the  first  cartoon, 
if  that  is  part  of  your  plan.  You  would,  in  that  case, 
I  suppose,  have  to  copy  it  if  she  allowed  you  to." 

Mr.  Mainwaring  rose  to  a  splendour  of  pomposity. 

"Copy?"  he  said.  "And  could  I  copy  the  fiery 
execution  of  it?  You  speak  of  pictures,  my  Peter,  as 
if  they  could  be  produced  like  boots  or  hats.  The 
intending  purchaser — I  do  not  say  whether  or  no  I 
refer  to  Lady  Darley — wants  no  cold  replica.  She 
insists  on  the  one  that  came  hot  and  terrible  from 
the  furnace  of  my  imagination." 

"Then  on  certain  conditions,"  said  Peter,  "Lady 
Darley — I  mean  the  purchaser — may  have  it." 

"Name  them,"  said  his  father,  looking  like  a  cap- 
tive king. 

"The  first  is  that  you  completely  withdraw,  and  if 
possible  regret,  the  use  of  the  expression  'pittance,' 
in  connection  with  the  price  you  received  for  it. 


208  PETER 

There's  an  implication  of  meanness  about  it  with 
regard  to  Mrs.  Wardour." 

Mr.  Mainwaring  clicked  his  thumb  and  finger  as 
if  to  say,  ''That  for  what  I  sold  it  for." 

'T  make  no  such  implication,"  he  said.  "Mrs. 
Wardour  or  anybody  else  is  well  within  her  rights 
in  acquiring  fine  work  at  such  prices  as  the  artist  is 
obliged  from  straitened  circumstances  to  accept." 

"The  point  is,"  said  Peter,  "that  you  hadn't  often, 
if  ever,  been  obliged  to  accept  a  thousand  guineas 
before  for  any  picture." 

"And  may  not  an  artist,  after  years  of  unremitting 
endeavour,  be  allowed  to  come  into  his  own  and  en- 
joy the  appreciation  he  has  long  merited?"  asked 
Mr.  Mainwaring. 

"Certainly  he  may:  we  are  all  delighted.  But 
when  he  does — when,  that  is  to  say,  you  at  length 
receive  a  high  price  for  a  picture,  you  shouldn't, 
because  you  are  offered  immediately  afterwards  a 
higher  price,  talk  of  a  pittance  as  applied  to  the  first. 
You  thought  yourself,  father,"  continued  Peter  pleas- 
antly and  inexorably,  "remarkably  fortunate  to  get  a 
thousand  guineas." 

Mr.  Mainwaring,  at  this,  displayed  the  versatility 
of  a  quick-change  artist.  It  was  pretty  well  demon- 
strated that  Peter  was  not  impressed  by  the  majes- 
tic attitude,  and  he  yodelled  and  burst  into  a  laugh. 

"Well,  well,  my  Peter,"  he  said,  "you  shall  have 
it  your  own  way.  It  was  no  pittance.  I  ought  not 
to  have  called  it  a  pittance — mea  culpa,  mea  maxima 
culpa.  Pittance  it  is — let  us  distinguish,  my  dear — 
when  I  contrast  it  with  the  subsequent  ofi"er  that 
has  reached  me,  but  at  the  time  a  thousand  guineas 
seemed  to  me  a  very  fair  remuneration.  I  had  been 
too  modest  about  my  value,  it  appears  now.  Ah,  yes. 


PETER  209 

but  recognition  is  pleasant  enough,  and  when  the 
brush  sUps  from  my  hand,  and  my  spirit  flies"  (he 
made  a  cii'cular  motion  of  his  arms  as  if  swimming) 
"to  join  the  mightier  dead,  the  Mainwaring  estate 
will  be  found  not  too  inconsiderable  to  place  beside 
the  fortunes  of  the  Wardours.  But  that  will  not,  I 
hope,  be  for  a  long  time  yet,"  he  added,  as  the  notion 
of  picturing  himself  in  front  of  some  great  canvas 
with  the  brush  slipping  from  his  nerveless  hands, 
supported  by  Silvia  and  Peter,  occurred  to  him  with 
an  almost  ominous  vividness. 

"Quite,"  said  Peter  in  general  acknowledgment  of 
this  magnificence.  "There  remains  then  one  thing 
to  settle,  and  that  is  the  price  at  which  you  repur- 
chase the  cartoon  of  which  Mrs.  Wardour  is  the 
present  possessor." 

Mr.  Mainwaring  did  not  for  the  moment  see  the 
bearing  of  this,  and  remained  splendid. 

"I  should  not  dream  of  repaying  her  one  penny 
less  than  what  I  received  for  it,"  he  said.  "The  full 
price,  Peter:  assure  her  of  that." 

Peter  thought  it  better  to  let  another  aspect  of  the 
case  strike  his  father,  without  suggesting  it,  and  was 
silent  till  Mr.  Mainwaring  spoke  again. 

"H'm.    I  see  what  you  mean,"  he  said. 

"I  hoped  you  would,  because  really  there  doesn't 
seem  to  be  any  reason  why  she  should  let  you  have 
for  a  thousand  guineas  a  thing  which  is  now  indubit- 
ably hers,  and  which  you  will  immediately  sell  for  a 
considerably  higher  sum." 

Mr.  Mainwaring  began  to  regret  that  he  had  said 
quite  so  much  about  the  utter  impossibility  of  recap- 
turing the  fire  of  the  original  in  a  copy. 

"You  would  be  offering  her,  you  must  remember," 
Peter  added,  "a  pittance  for  her  picture." 


210  PETER 

"You  think  I  ought  to  give  her  what  I  shall  receive 
for  it?"  asked  Mr.  Main  waring. 

Peter  kept  steadily  before  him  his  distaste  of  his 
father  "scoring  off"  Mrs.  Wardour.  The  whole  thing, 
though  humorous,  was  rather  sordid;  but  he  knew 
that  he  rather  iiked  himself  in  the  part  he  was  play- 
ing in  it. 

*T  think  the  justice  of  that  view  will  appeal  to 
you,"  he  said.  "You  couldn't  very  well  do  other- 
wise." 

Mr.  Mainwaring  was  silent  a  moment,  and  then 
decided  to  be  completely  superb. 

"I  have  no  experience  in  business  or  in  bargain- 
ing," he  said.  "If  you  tell  me  that  is  right  and  fair 
and  proper,  I  yield." 

"I  think  it's  your  only  means  of  getting  the  pic- 
ture," said  Peter.  "So  that's  settled,  is  it?  Oh,  the 
letter  from  my  mother.  Thanks.  Dinner  at  half- 
past  eight." 


CHAPTER  X 

Peter,  as  he  strolled  down  the  corridor,  knew  that 
he  had  been  rather  signorial — if  that  was  the  word 
— and  designedly  so,  in  this  inter\dew.  In  spite  of 
Mr.  Mainw^aring's  magnificent  occupation  of  the 
state-rooms,  for  which,  after  all,  he  had  his  son  to 
thank,  Peter  was  pleased  to  feel  that  he  had  been 
putting  his  father  in  his  place.  It  had  certainly  been 
with  this  object  in  view  that  he  had  smoked  his  cig- 
arette, and  dropped  the  expired  match  on  the  carpet, 
not  exactly  calling  attention  to  his  position,  but 
casually  assuming  it.  Again,  in  the  matter  of  the 
picture,  he  had,  ever  so  quietly,  ever  so  indulgently, 
just  hinted  at  the  right  course,  and  like  a  lamb — a 
great  vain  rococo,  farcical  lamb — his  father  had 
bleated  his  w^ay  into  the  proper  fold. 

Peter  confessed  to  himself — he  seldom  confessed 
to  anybody  else — that  the  motive  which  inspired 
these  manoeuvres  was  an  unamiable  one.  He  might 
easily  have  obtained  the  results  that  he  now,  to- 
gether with  his  mother's  unopened  letter,  carried 
away  from  this  interview,  by  tact,  by  pleasantness, 
by  the  general  small  change  of  sympathy.  Hitherto 
he  had  been  accustomed  to  use  such  lubrications  to 
make  the  wheels  of  life  run  smoothly  in  domestic 
dealings;  but  now  that  no  further  domestic  lubrica- 
tion was  necessary  on  his  part  (his  father,  it  is 
true,  might  have  to  flourish  the  oil-can  with  des- 
perate agility,  if  he  was  to  ensure  smooth  working) 
Peter  knew  that  he  had  just  driven  ahead  and  let 

211 


212  PETER 

the  wheels,  if  so  they  felt  disposed,  squeak  and 
squeal,  and  grind  and  grumble.  While  that  small, 
smelly  house  off  the  Brompton  Road  had  been  his 
home,  it  had  paid  to  make  the  bearings  run  easily; 
but  now,  when  he  thought  with  incredulous  wonder 
that  he  could  have  "stuck"  all  that  small  stufl&ness 
so  long,  he  detachedly  admired  his  own  past  deft- 
ness and  patience  in  dealing  with  the  daily  situation 
there.  He  saw  in  the  mirror  of  his  own  vanity  the 
incomparable  crudeness  of  his  father's,  and  discov- 
ered, almost  with  a  sense  of  shock,  how  cordially  he 
disliked  him. 

For  the  present  his  sense  of  humour  with  regard 
to  him  was  in  total  eclipse;  the  type  of  quality  which 
Silvia  hugged  as  being  the  lovable  queerness  which 
makes  for  individuality,  he  saw  only  as  tiresome  and 
contemptible  eccentricity,  a  thing  to  be  contem- 
plated baldly  without  comment,  whenever  contem- 
plation of  it  was  necessary,  and  to  be  dealt  with 
summarily.  The  vexing  affair  was  that  Peter  caught 
some  broken  image  of  himself  in  all  this.  One 
glimpse  of  himself  in  especial  was  irritating;  that, 
namely,  in  which  he  looked  with  great  distaste  on 
his  father's  profiting  by  the  wealth  of  the  Wardour's 
without  giving  a  due  return  for  his  depredations 
on  it. 

It  was  natural  that  when,  as  now,  he  was  so 
acutely  aware  of  his  father's  unique  capability  for 
rubbing  him  up  the  wrong  way,  he  should  wonder 
afresh  at  the  placid,  unruffled  tolerance  that  had  en- 
abled his  mother  to  spend  a  quarter  of  a  century 
with  him.  Women,  of  course,  so  ran  his  reflections, 
have  a  greater  gift  of  patience  with  men  than  a  man 
can  be  expected  to  have.  Sex,  no  doubt,  had  some- 
thing to  do  with  it,  for  on  the  other  hand  men  were 


PETER  213 

more  tolerant  of  a  tiresome  woman  than  were  other 
women.  Yet  that  could  not  wholly  explain  his 
mother;  she  was  quite  inexplicable,  for  Silvia  even, 
gifted  as  Peter  ever  so  cordially  recognized  with  the 
power  of  putting  herself  into  the  position  and  realiz- 
ing the  identity  of  other  people,  had  fallen  back  like 
a  spent  wave  from  the  hard,  smooth  impenetrability 
of  his  mother.  She  had  confessed  herself  baffled,  had 
no  idea  whether  there  was  something,  somebody,  her- 
metically sealed  up  behind  that  neat  porcelain  face 
by  the  inexorable  will  of  its  occupant,  or  if  there  was 
nothing  beyond  that  blank  imperturbability  that 
cared  only  whether  the  door  at  the  head  of  the 
kitchen  stairs  was  "quite  shut"  and  had  no  desire 
except  to  be  left  alone  and  allowed  to  read  adver- 
tisements of  hotels  in  railway  guides.  Had  his 
mother  been  driven  into  that  small,  but  apparently 
impregnable,  fortress  by  his  father's  colossal  and 
ludicrous  personality,  or  was  there  indeed  no  one 
there  at  all,  no  beleaguered  garrison  grimly  holdmg 
out? 

Peter  wandered  on  to  the  terrace  for  a  minute  of 
composing  dusk  and  quietness.  He  half  expected  to 
find  Silvia  there,  and  felt  a  little  ill-used  that  she 
was  not.  She  knew  what  was  the  nature  of  his  inter- 
view with  his  father,  and  Peter  would  have  wel- 
comed the  warmth  of  her  applause  at  his  masterly 
conduct  of  it.  But  in  her  absence  he  could  read  the 
certainly  placid  communication  from  his  mother. 
She  would  hope  he  was  well,  she  would  hope  Silvia 
was  well,  she  would  let  it  be  assumed  that  she  was 
well.  She  would  certainly  also  say  that  she  was  so 
sorry  she  could  not  come  to  Howes  with  his  father, 
but  that  she  hope<:l  to  do  so  some  time  during  the 
autumn.    She  would  undoubtedly  wind  up  by  say- 


214  PETER 

ing  that  it  was  nearly  post-time,  that  she  had  other 
letters.  .  .  .  Peter  drew  the  letter  from  his  pocket, 
and  prepared  to  let  his  eyes  slide  smoothly  over  the 
lines  of  it.  She  wrote  a  wonderfully  clear  hand :  you 
could  take  a  whole  sentence  in  at  a  glance. 

"My  dearest  Peter, — I  am  sending  this  letter  to 
you  by  your  father,  because  I  want  it  to  reach  you 
without  fail.  Letters  go  wrong  by  post  sometimes, 
and  I  don't  want  this  to  go  wrong.  When  I  have 
finished  it,  I  shall  put  it  into  his  despatch-box  my- 
self. 

"When  your  father  comes  back  from  his  visit  to 
you  and  Silvia,  he  will  not  find  me  here.  It  is  no 
use  mincing  words,  so  I  will  tell  you  straight  out 
that  I  can't  stand  him  any  longer.  It  would  not 
have  answered  my  purpose  just  to  go  away  from  him 
for  a  month,  for  I  should  have  felt  all  the  time  that 
at  the  end  of  the  month  I  should  have  to  come  back; 
I  should  have  been  on  the  end  of  the  string  still.  As 
it  is,  I  shall  stop  away  just  as  long  as  I  choose.  I 
shall  be  free.  I  want  a  holiday  without  any  tie 
v/hatever.  When  I  mean  to  come  back  (if  I  do)  I 
shall  write  to  him  and  ask  him  if  he  will  take  me 
back.  I  don't  know  how  long  it  will  be  before  I  want 
to.  It  might  be  a  fortnight,  or  it  might  be  a  year,  or 
it  might  be  never.  I  shall  simply  stay  away  from 
him,  at  some  pleasant  place  which  I  have  selected, 
until  I  feel  better. 

"While  you  were  living  with  your  father  and  me 
I  could  just  get  along;  but  since  you  have  gone  I 
can't  get  along  at  all.  We  weren't  much  to  eaeh 
other,  for  all  my  individuality — isn't  that  what  they 
call  it? — had  long  ago  been  hammered  back  into  me. 
I  was  like  a  small  person  in  a  large  suit  of  armour. 


PETER  215 

But  somehow  you  were  a  part  of  me,  and  while  you 
were  there  I  couldn't  go  away. 

"I  ask  you,  my  dear,  not  to  make  any  attempt  to 
find  me,  and  I  want  you  to  persuade  your  father  not 
to.  I  shall  be  quite  comfortable,  and  as  I  am  never 
ill  I  don't  see  why  I  should  begin  to  be  so  now.  I 
shall  go  to  a  nice  hotel,  where  I  shan't  have  to  order 
lunch  and  dinner  or  add  up  bills.  It  is  astonishing 
how  many  nice  hotels  there  are,  quite  moderate  in 
price,  which  will  just  suit  me. 

"Now  this  may  seem  unkind,  but  the  fact  is  that 
I  don't  want  to  hear  a  word  from  either  j^ou  or  your 
father.  You  and  I  have  nothing  in  common;  in 
fact,  I  have  nothing  in  common  with  anybody,  and 
I  only  want  to  be  left  alone  in  peace,  and  not  to  be 
reminded  of  the  last  twenty-five  years  of  my  life 
at  all.  I  want  not  to  be  bothered  with  anybody.  I 
want  to  get  up  and  go  to  bed  when  I  choose,  and  go 
for  my  walk,  and  read  my  book,  and  play  patience. 
You  and  I  have  never  loved  each  other  at  all,  so 
there's  no  use  in  pretending  to  be  pathetic  over  that 
now.  Before  you  were  old  enough  to  understand,  I 
hadn't  got  any  feeling  left  in  me,  or,  at  least,  it  was 
hammered  right  inside  me.  If  any  time  during  these 
last  ten  years  I  had  died,  you  wouldn't  have  missed 
me,  though  I  should  have  missed  you  to  the  extent, 
anyhow,  of  your  absence  making  my  life  with  your 
father  quite  intolerable.  I  don't  bear  him  the 
slightest  ill  will,  and  I  hope  he'll  bear  me  none.  He 
has  excellent  servants,  and  they  will  make  him  quite 
comfortable,  which  is  all  he  wants.  But  I've  got  too 
much  sense  to  remain  with  him  any  longer. 

"He  has  been  saying  great  things  lately  about  the 
immense  sums  of  money  he  will  get  for  his  series 
of  cartoons,  so  that  I  have  no  scruple  in  withdraw- 


216  PETER 

ing  from  him  the  £600  a  year  which  is  my  own  in- 
come. I  can't  be  certain,  of  course,  whether  he  has 
not  been  multiplying  everything  by  ten,  in  order 
to  glorify  himself,  but  I  suppose  there  is  some  truth 
in  it  all.  Anyhow,  he  has  got  a  cheque  from  Mrs. 
Wardour  for  a  thousand  guineas,  because  he  showed 
me  that.  He  was  in  great  spirits  that  night,  dancing 
round  the  table  and  singing  and  drinking  quantities 
of  port.  And  that,  it  appears,  is  nothing  to  what  he 
is  going  to  get  for  the  rest  of  his  great  series." 

Peter  took  his  eyes  off  the  neatly  written  sheets 
for  a  moment  and  gave  a  great  gasp.  The  figure  of 
his  mother,  as  he  was  accustomed  to  behold  it,  veiled 
and  still,  and  sitting  in  shadow  and  never  giving  a 
sign  of  individual  life,  had  suddenly  cast  off  its  con- 
cealment and  tranquillities,  and  stood  out  violently 
illuminated.  That  smooth,  polished  object  which 
had  lain  inert  so  long  in  the  midst  of  railway  guides, 
had  proved  itself  to  be  a  live  shell  which,  without 
any  warning  or  preliminary  sizzling,  had  exploded. 
He  himself  was  unhurt,  though  immeasurably  aston- 
ished and  startled,  and  he  exulted  in  the  fact  that 
the  thing  had  been  alive  after  all,  carrying  within 
it  such  store  of  devastating  energy.  His  own  mar- 
riage, his  departure  from  home,  had  set  off  the  fuse; 
he  had  been,  all  unconsciously,  the  controlling  agent. 

He  dived  again  into  this  most  lucid  report  of  the 
explosion,  observing  with  regret  that  there  were  but 
a  couple  of  pages  more.  At  the  moment  Silvia  ap- 
peared at  the  door  from  the  terrace  into  the  draw- 
ing-room close  behind  where  he  sat. 

"Peter,  is  that  you?"  she  asked. 

"Yes;  one  minute.    Or  come  here,  Silvia.    Take 


PETER  217 

these  sheets  and  read  them  without  saying  anything 
till  I've  finished.    It's  a  letter  from  my  mother." 

He  buried  himself  in  the  remainder  of  the  letter, 
hardly  hearing  Silvia's  gasp  of  surprise  as  she  came 
to  the  second  paragraph. 

"Now  I  want  you,"  the  narrative  continued,  "to 
consider  this  before  you  pass  any  judgment  on  what 
I  have  done.  I  am  injuring  nothing  and  nobody, 
except  your  father's  vanity,  and  I  have  no  doubt  he 
will  find  some  explanation  of  my  leaving  hmi  which 
will  quite  satisfy  him.  He  will  not  be  the  least  less 
happy  without  me,  nor  will  you.  I  have  got  no 
friends,  for  I  am  not  the  sort  of  person  who  can  make 
friends  or  who  wants  them ;  I  have  been  hammered, 
as  I  have  said,  into  myself,  and  I  break  no  ties  the 
severance  of  which  is  painful  for  others  any  more 
than  for  me.  I  see  so  few  people,  and  those  so  very 
occasionally,  that  there  need  be  no  scandal  of  any 
kind ;  your  father  will  only  have  to  say,  about  once  a 
month,  that  I  am  on  a  visit  to  the  country,  which  is 
quite  true. 

"My  solicitor  knows  where  I  am,  and  from  time 
to  time  he  will  let  you  have  a  note  from  me,  saying 
how  I  am.  As  for  news,  I  shall  have  none ;  I  shall 
take  my  walk,  and  read  my  book,  and  entertain  my- 
self very  well,  and  I  shall  be  very  happy,  because 
I  shall  be  free.  I  rather  believe  that  you  are  suffi- 
ciently like  me  to  understand  that,  for  you  have 
always  kept  yourself  independent  of  everybody. 

"Finally,  I  leave  it  to  you  (no  doubt  you  will  con- 
sult Silvia)  as  to  whether  you  let  your  father  find 
out  that  I  have  gone  when  he  returns  home,  or 
whether  you  tell  him.  I  think  personally  that  it 
v/ould  be  wiser  to  tell  him,  because  when  he  got 


218  PETER 

home  and  found  the  few  lines  (not  like  this  long 
letter)  which  I  have  left  for  him  there,  just  to  say 
I  have  gone,  he  might  make  some  dreadful  scene 
and  upset  everybody.  But  that  I  leave  entirely  to 
you. 

"All  the  wages  and  books  were  paid  up  to  the 
end  of  last  week.  The  bills,  with  their  receipts,  are 
in  their  place  in  the  third  drawer  of  my  knee-hole 
table. 

"Your  affectionate  mother, 

"Maria  Mainwaring." 

Peter  thrust  the  remaining  pages  into  Silvia's 
hand,  and  waited  till  she  had  come  to  the  end.  Then 
they  looked  at  each  other  in  silence. 

"I'm  going  to  laugh,"  said  Peter  at  length. 

"No,  please  don't,"  said  Silvia.  "If  you  do  I  shall 
cry." 

Peter  tapped  the  sheets  that  lay  in  her  hand. 

"But  it's  gorgeous,"  he  said.  "I  should  laugh,  if 
I  did,  not  from  amusement — though  there  are  amus- 
ing things — but  from  pleasure.  Every  word  in  that 
letter  is  true;  that's  something  to  be  pleased  about, 
and,  what's  more,  every  word  in  it  is  right.  But  the 
surprise,  the  wonder  of  it!  There's  a  splendour 
about  it!" 

Silvia  shuffled  the  sheets  together,  and,  giving 
them  back  to  him,  leaned  her  forehead  on  her  hands. 

"Ah,  haven't  you  got  any  tenderness?"  she  said. 
"Don't  you  see  the  bitter  pathos  of  it?  Your 
mother,  you  know!" 

"But  she  says  there  is  nothing  pathetic  about  it," 
said  he. 

"And  that's  just  the  most  pathetic  thing  of  all!" 
Silvia  said. 


PETER  219 

Peter  puzzled  over  this  a  moment.  He  understood 
Silvia's  feeling  well  enough,  but  he  understood 
equally  well,  and  with  greater  sympathy,  the  answer 
(the  retort  almost)  to  it. 

"But  if  she  sees  nothing  pathetic  in  the  situation, 
and  I  quite  agi'ee  with  her,  what's  the  use  of  trying 
to  introduce  pathos?"  he  asked.  'Tathos  painted 
on — like  a  varnish — ceases  to  be  pathos  at  all;  it 
becomes  simply  sentimentality." 

Silvia  turned  to  him  like  some  patient  affectionate 
teacher  to  a  child  who  pretends  only  not  to  know  his 
lessons. 

"If  the  absence  of  love  in  relationships  like  these 
isn't  pathetic,"  she  said,  "love  itself  is  only  senti- 
mentality." 

Peter  again  saw  precisely  what  she  meant;  he 
know,  too,  that  what  she  said  was  true.  But  he 
knew  that  he,  for  himself,  did  not  realize  it  with  con- 
viction, with  a  sense  of  illumination.  .  .  .  The 
statement  of  it  was  just  an  instance  the  more  of 
Silvia's  shining  there  aloft  of  his  confining  cloudland. 
The  thought  of  that  dealt  him  a  stab  of  envy,  and 
under  the  hurt  of  it  his  spirit  snapped  and  snarled, 
and  retired,  so  to.speak,  into  its  kennel,  leaving  his 
mind  outside  to  manage  the  situation. 

"Well,  then,  it's  pathetic,"  he  said,  "but  it  has 
been  pathetic  so  long  that  one  has  got  used  to  it.  I 
know  you're  right,  but  what  you  say  hasn't  any  prac- 
tical bearing " 

"Ah,  my  dear,  but  it  has,"  said  she.  "It  has  all 
the  practical  bearing.  It  is  up  to  you,  practically,  to 
handle  it  in  hardness  in — in  a  sort  of  ruthlessness, 
or  you  can,  recognizing  what  I  say,  deal  with  it 
tenderly. 

"By  all  means;  but  the  facts  aren't  new.    Leave 


220  PETER 

me  out:  let's  consider  my  father  and  mother  only. 
There's  the  practical  side  of  it.  He's  got  to  be  told — 
at  least,  I  suppose  so.  There's  no  new  pathos  there. 
They've  both  been  aware  of  lovelessness  for  years. 
If  my  father  takes  the  wounded,  the  pathetic  pose,  it 
will — it  will  just  be  a  pose.  Frankly,  I'm  all  on  my 
mother's  side.  By  one  big  gesture  she  has  explained 
herself;  she  has  made  a  living  comprehensible 
reality  of  herself.  The  Bradshaws,  the  railway  guide 
advertisements — good  Lord,  we  know  what  it  has  all 
been  about  now!  There's  flesh  and  blood  in  it!  I 
always  respect  flesh  and  blood!" 

"But  her  way  of  doing  it  is  an  outrage,"  said 
Silvia.  "She's  your  father's  wife,  after  all:  she's 
your  mother.  Take  your  mother's  side  by  all  means 
— we've  all  got  to  take  sides  in  everything:  nobody 
can  be  neutral — but  take  his  side  in  her  manner  of 
doing  what  she  has  done.  Sympathize  with  him  in 
that!  That  letter,  too — will  you  show  him  the 
letter?    The  hostility  of  it,  the  resentment!" 

Peter  sat  still  a  moment  fingering  the  leaves  of  the 
letter. 

"It's  not  so  much  resentment,"  he  said,  "as  repres- 
sion. She  has  been  hammered  back  into  herself  all 
these  years.  Oh,  I  understand  her  better  than  you. 
It  had  to  happen  this  way.  What  else  was  she  to 
do?  Could  she  go  to  my  father  and  say,  'If  you 
can't  put  some  curb  on  your  egoism  and  vanity,  if 
you  continue  to  be  such  a  bounder  (that's  what 
bounders  are)  I  really  shall  have  to  leave  you'?" 

"You  want  to  score  off  him,  Peter,"  said  she. 
"That's  the  hardness,  the  ruthlessness.  And  you 
aren't  hard,  my  darling.  Who  knows  that  better 
than  I?" 

"Are  you  sure  I  am  not?"  he  said. 


PETER  221 

She  did  not  answer  this  directly. 

"You've  got  to  be  gentle,"  she  said. 

Peter's  fingers  closed  on  the  letter,  hesitated,  and 
then  tore  the  sheets  in  half.  He  tore  them  across 
yet  again. 

"Well,  he  shan't  see  the  letter,"  he  said.  "It  was 
written  to  me  and  I've  destroyed  it.  But  if,  when  I 
tell  him,  he  becomes  melodramatic  how  can  I  help 
being  what  you  call  ruthless?  He's  so  vain:  you 
don't  know  how  vain  he  is.  This  will  be  a  brutal 
outrage,  an  attempted  assassination  of  his  vanity. 
But  it  won't  injure  it.  The  dastardly  blow  will 
glance  aside,  and  he'll  put  an  extra  bodyguard  round 
his  vanity  for  the  future.  He's  a  ridiculous  person, 
Silvia,"  said  Peter  in  a  loud,  firm  voice. 

Silvia  gave  a  sigh. 

"Ah,  that's  better,"  she  said,  "for  you've  torn  the 
letter  up,  anyhow,  and  when  you  said  he  was  ridicu- 
lous, you  said  it,  my  dear,  as  if  you  were  justifying 
yourself  rather  than  accusing  him.  Oh,  you  said  it 
firmly  and  loudly,  but — will  you  mind  if  I  say  this, 
too? — you  didn't  say  it  so  spitefully.  Now,  let's  be 
practical.  You  always  used  to  be  practical,  Peter. 
When  are  you  going  to  tell  hun?" 

Peter  looked  at  his  watch. 

"That  means  that  if  I  say  that  I  haven't  made  up 
my  mind,"  he  said,  "you  will  certainly  let  me  know 
that  there  is  plenty  of  time  to  tell  him  before  dinner. 
You  want  me  to  tell  him  now:  that's  where  we 
are.  You  call  me  practical:  who  was  ever  so  prac- 
tical as  you,  when  it  comes  to  the  point?" 

She  did  not  challenge  that,  but  rather  proceeded 
to  justify  Peter's  opinion  for  him. 

"My  dear,  you  can  put  off  pleasant  things  if  you 
like,"  she  said,  "because  you  enjoy  the  anticipation 


222  PETER 

of  them.  But  where — where  is  the  use  of  putting  off 
unpleasant  things?  That  only  lengthens  a  beastly 
anticipation." 

"He'll  make  a  scene,"  said  Peter.  'T  hate  scenes." 

There  was  nothing  to  reply  to  this:  it  all  came 
under  the  advisability,  which  she  had  already  ex- 
pressed, of  not  putting  off  unpleasantnesses.  So  she 
made  no  reply,  and  soon,  for  the  face  of  her  con- 
tinued to  push  him,  he  got  up,  still  wondering  if  she 
would  prefer  to  tell  his  father  herself.  How  strongly 
she  wanted  to  do  that,  and  how,  more  strongly,  she 
refrained  from  doing  it,  he  had  no  idea.  Her  incli- 
nation, that  which  she  combated,  was  simply  to  go 
straight  to  those  voluptuous  state-rooms;  but  her 
will,  her  convinced  sense  of  what  was  right,  of  what 
was  Peter's  own  duty  and  development,  kept  her 
silent. 

"Oh,  I  am  sorry  for  you,"  she  said  at  length,  as 
he  turned  to  go  into  the  house.  "But  don't  forget  to 
be  sorry  for  him,  Peter." 

His  only  answer  to  that  was  a  just  perceptible 
shrug  of  his  shoulder  (comment  on  the  futility  of 
her  sjrmpathy),  and  he  walked  away  across  the 
crackling  gravel. 

Silvia  knew  how  Peter's  mere  presence  stifled  her 
power  of  judgment  with  regard  to  him.  Often  and 
often  she  had  to  cling,  desperately,  to  a  mental 
integrity  of  her  own,  in  order  not  to  be  washed  away 
by  the  mere  tide  of  her  devotion  to  him.  Her  desire, 
not  only  the  flesh  and  the  blood  of  her,  but  her  very 
spirit,  would  always  have  surrendered  to  him,  would 
have  given  up  herself,  whole  and  complete,  to  what 
pleased  him,  to  what  made  him  comfortable,  content 
and  happy.  But  somewhere  between  these  two 
apexes  of  physical  and  spiritual  longing  there  came 


PETER  223 

another  peak,  a  mental  and  judicial  apex,  so  she 
framed  it  to  herself,  a  thing  solid  and  reliable,  a 
kind  of  bleak  umpire  that  gave  inexorable  decisions. 

Already  in  their  fortnight  of  married  life  it  had 
several  times  asserted  itself — it  was  her  will,  she 
supposed,  clear-eyed  and  unbribable,  which  was  as 
distinct  from  the  blindness  of  love  as  it  was  from 
the  abandonment  of  physical  desire.  Peter  had  sug- 
gested, for  instance,  that  he  should  "chuck"  his  work 
in  the  Foreign  OflBce  (this  was  the  most  notable  of 
these  instances)  and  live,  just  live,  now  at  Howes, 
now  in  London,  always  with  her.  They  would  travel, 
they  would  entertain,  they  would  have  plenty  of 
interests  to  keep  him  busy  enough.  He  had  urged, 
he  had  argued,  he  had  appealed  to  her  for  her  mere 
acquiescence,  willing  or  not,  and  she  had  steadily 
and  unshakably  refused  to  give  it.  Here,  to-night, 
was  another  test  for  this  umpire  of  the  mind.  It 
would  have  been  infinitely  easier  for  her  to  tell  Mr. 
Mainwaring  herself,  and  she  knew  quite  convincedly 
that  she  would  have  proved  a  far  more  sympathetic 
breaker  of  shocking  tidings  than  Peter  would  be. 
Peter  would  now,  on  his  way  to  the  state-rooms,  be 
framing  adroit  sentences,  be  schooling  his  antici- 
patory impatience  at  a  melodramatic  reception  of 
that  news  by  his  father  into  tolerance  and  gentle- 
ness. But  she  had  as  little  temptation  to  be  intoler- 
ant or  ungentle,  as  she  had  to  be  the  reverse;  she 
would  naturally  have  stood  in  an  attitude  which 
Peter  would  find  it  gymnastically  difficult  to  main- 
tain. But  he  had  got  to  do  his  best,  not  to  let  her 
do  so  infinitely  better. 

It  took  but  a  moment's  stiffening  of  herself  to 
baffle  any  inclination  to  follow  Peter  and  shoulder 
his  mission  for  him,  and  her  thoughts  went  back  to 


224  PETER 

Mrs.  Mainwaring's  letter  and  its  startling  effect  (or 
want  of  effect)  on  Peter.    That  had  produced,  so  she 
found  now  when  she  was  no  longer  under  the  spell 
of  his  presence,  a  certain  incredulous  dismay.    "You 
aren't  like  that,"  she  had  assured  him,  but  now  she 
found  herself  saying,  ''He  can't  be  like  that!"    He 
appeared  to  have  received  this  intelligence  with  a 
savage,  or  if  not  a  savage,  a  wholly  unpitiful  com- 
ment.   He  had  seemed  and  indeed  seemed  now  to 
have  applauded  the  tragic  sequel  to  years  of  resent- 
ful companionship.    He  had  confessed  to  a  desire  to 
laugh  (this  was  the  ruthlessness) .    It  might  be  that 
the  logical  result  of  such  years  was  that  Mrs.  Main- 
waring,  given  that  she  retained    any    independent 
identity  of  her  own,  should  have  been  goaded  into 
this  assertion  of  it.    It  might,  in  the  ultimate  weigh- 
mg  of  souls,  be  better  that  she  should  have  cut  the 
knot  like  this,  rather  than  have  been  strangled  by  it. 
It  was  all  very  well  for  Peter  to  take  her  side,  but 
to  take  her  side  competently  included  an  apprecia- 
tion of  what  she  had  suffered,  and  what  she  had 
failed  in.     Anyone  could  form  a  fair  idea  of  what 
she,  as  exhibited  now,  had  suffered  by  the  smallest 
recognition  of  what  it  must  have  been  to  be  tied  to 
the  present  occupant  of  the  state-rooms,  and  the 
same  exhibition  showed  exactly  her  tragic  failure 
in  allowing  herself  to  be  driven  into  this  hermetical 
compartment,  where  all  that  reached  her  was  the 
contemplation  of  her  escape,  as  shown  by  her  study 
of  hotels.    But  Peter  turned  over  all  this,  which  was 
the  root  of  the  matter,  as  he  might  turn  over  the 
leaves  of  a  dull  book,  and  only  saw  a  dramatic  com- 
edy in  it,  deserving  of  applause  for  its  fitness,  of  an 
exclamation,   "Serves  him  right!"   or  a  laughing, 
"Well  done,  mother!"  .  .  .  You  couldn't  deal  with 


PETER  225 

people  like  that ;  at  that  rate  the  whole  world  would 
become  a  relentless  machine,  always  grinding,  always 
seeing  others  ground,  always  being  diverted  at  the 
pitiless  revolution  of  the  wheels.  Compassion,  ten- 
derness, these  were  the  qualities  that  just  saved  and 
redeemed  the  world  from  hell,  or  at  least  from  being 
a  wounding  comedy,  at  which  no  human  person 
could  laugh  for  fear  of  crying  instead. 

Silvia  got  up  from  the  seat  where  she  and  Peter 
had  read  his  mother's  letter,  definitely  desiring  to 
avoid  the  conclusion  to  which  her  thoughts  were 
leading  her.  He  had  wanted  to  laugh — that  was 
certain,  but  she  must  forget  that.  Probably  he  had 
not  meant  it;  it  was  only  incongruousness  and  sur- 
prise (like  funny  things  in  church,  which  would  not 
be  in  the  least  funny  elsewhere)  which  had  made  a 
spasm.  .  .  .  Peter  assuredly  was  not  like  that 
really,  and  the  loyalty  of  love  derided  her  for  sup- 
posing it.  He  was  (her  heart  insisted  on  that)  all 
that  her  love  adored  him  for  being. 

The  dressing-bell  had  already  sumptuously 
sounded  from  the  central  turret,  and,  still  quite 
ignorant  of  what  had  been  the  result  of  the  dis- 
closure, but  conscious  of  a  yearning  anxiety  to  know,, 
she  went  up  to  her  bedroom.  She  was  not  so  much 
anxious  to  know  how  Mr.  Mainwaring  was  "taking 
it"  (how  he  ''took  it"  seemed  to  matter  very  little), 
but  ]  ow  Peter  had  done  his  part.  Between  his 
dressing-room  and  her  bedroom  were  a  couple  of 
bathrooms,  and  she  heard,  with  a  certain  clinging  to 
the  usualness  of  life,  splashings  and  hissing  of  water 
coming  from  one  of  these.  Whatever  had  happened, 
there  was  Peter  having  his  bath,  and  soon,  most 
likely,  he  would  tap  at  her  door,  barefooted  (he 
never  would  wear  slippers  as  he  paddled  about  be- 


226  PETER 

tween  his  room  and  hers)  with  the  blue  silk  dress- 
ing-gown tied  with  a  tasselled  cord  about  his  waist. 
Peter  had  a  wondrous  ritual  for  his  bath :  he  had  to 
immerse  himself  first  of  all,  and  then  stand  on  the 
mat  while  he  soaped  himself  from  head  to  foot. 
Then,  still  slippery  and  soapy,  in  order  to  get  cold 
and  heighten  the  enjoyment  of  the  next  immersion, 
he  turned  on  more  hot  taps,  and  put  spoonful  after 
spoonful  of  verbena  salts  into  the  water.  Then  he 
got  in  again,  and  stewed  himself  in  this  fragrant 
soup.  When  he  was  too  hot  to  bear  it  any  longer, 
he  retired  into  a  small  waterproof  castle  at  the  end 
of  the  bath,  and  turned  on  all  the  cold  water 
douches  and  squirts  and  syringes.  Then,  without 
drying  himself  at  all,  he  put  on  the  famous  blue  silk 
dressing-gown,  which  had  a  hood  to  it,  lit  a  ciga- 
rette, and  tapped  at  her  door,  to  ascertain  whether 
he  could  sit  and  finish  his  cigarette  there.  Silvia,  by 
this  time,  knew  precisely  the  interpretation  of  these 
splashings  and  hissings  of  water,  and  she  would'hurry 
up  her  own  dressing,  or  slow  it  down,  so  that  she 
could  admit  him.  Fresh  from  his  scrubbings  and 
soapings,  with  the  glow  of  the  cold  water  on  his 
skin,  he  was  paganly  sensuous  in  his  enjoyment  of 
the  physical  conditions  of  the  moment,  and,  sitting 
by  her  dressing-table,  talked  the  most  amazing  non- 
sense. He  dried  his  feet  on  the  tail  of  his  dressing- 
gown,  he  rubbed  his  hair  on  the  hood  of  it;  there 
was  the  scent  of  soap  and  verbena  and  cigarette, 
and  more  piercing  to  her  sense  than  these  his  firm, 
smooth  skin,  the  cleansedness  and  the  freshness  of 
him.  ...  At  such  chattering  undress  seances 
she  was  most  of  all  conscious  of  him  to  the  exclusion 
of  herself;  for  whereas  his  kiss,  his  caress,  united 
her  with  him,  and  she  had  part  in  it,  when  he  came 


PETER  227 

in  thus,  rough-haired,  bare-legged,  wet-footed,  with 
a  smooth  shoulder  emerging  from  his  dressing-gown, 
while,  enveloped  in  it,  he  rubbed  himself  dry,  she 
felt  herself  merely  a  spectator  of  this  beautiful 
animal. 

But  if  he  came  in  now — he  might  or  might  not — 
she  knew  that  to-night  she  would  be  involved,  so  to 
speak,  w^ith  him;  his  character,  the  essence  of  him, 
as  exhibited  in  such  account  as  he  might  give  her 
of  the  interview  with  his  father,  would  come  like  a 
cloud  or  a  brightness  that  would  obstruct  this  purely 
spectator-like  view  of  him.  He  would  not  only  be 
the  clean,  lithe  animal,  which,  for  these  few  minutes, 
she  could  look  at  without  passion,  without  love, 
without  friendship  even,  and  be  absorbed  in  the 
mere  joy  that  there  should  be  in  this  world  so  young 
and  wild  and  perfect  a  creature.  .  .  . 

There  came  his  knock,  and  the  usual  inquiry,  and 
he  entered  while  her  maid,  with  chaste,  averted  face, 
rustled  out,  not  waiting  to  be  dismissed,  through  the 
other  door.  He  sat  down  in  the  big  low  chair  by  her 
dressing-table. 

"Oh,  the  simplest  pleasures  are  so  much  the  best," 
he  said.  "Just  washing,  you  know,  just  being  hungry 
and  sleepy.  I  never  enjoy  a  play  or  a  book  or  a  joke 
nearly  so  well  as  a  bath  and  food  and  getting  my 
head  well  down  into  the  pillow.  But  I  hate  sponges. 
Why  should  I  scrub  my  nose  with  a  piece  of  dead 
seaweed?" 

Listen  as  she  might,  with  all  the  delicacy  of 
divination  that  love  had  given  to  her  ear,  she  could 
find  in  his  voice  no  inflection,  no  hesitation,  nor,  on 
the  other  hand,  any  glibness  (as  of  a  lesson  learned 
and  faultlessly  repeated)  that  showed  that  he  was 
speaking  otherwise  than  completely  naturally.    The 


228  PETER 

topics  of  bath  and  dinner  and  bed  came  to  his  lips 
with  quite  spontaneous  fluency,  as  if  he  had  not  in 
this  last  hour  been  the  bearer  to  his  father  of  a  tragic 
situation — one  that,  at  least,  must  wound  the  vanity 
which  was  so  predominant  a  passion  in  him.  Or  had 
Mr.  IMainwaring  taken  it  with  the  same  ruthless- 
ness,  the  same  cynical  amusement  as  Peter  had  ap- 
peared to?  Silvia  could  not  believe  that:  he  must 
have  been  hurt,  been  astounded.  But  why,  in  pity's 
name,  did  not  Peter  tell  her  about  that  interview? 
He  must  have  known  how  she  longed  to  be  told, 
whether  there  was  good  or  bad  to  tell.    ... 

"A  revolving  brush  covered  with  wash-leather," 
continued  Peter,  ''like  a  small  boxing  glove.  You 
would  cover  it  with  soap  and  work  it  with  your  foot. 
But  a  sponge !  Odious  in  texture,  dull  in  colour,  and 
full  of  horrible  dark  holes  which  probably  contain 
the  pincere  of  defunct  crabs  and  the  fins  of  dead  fish. 
.  .  .  Oh,  by  the  way,  I  quite  forgot!  I  did  really, 
darling;  I  was  thinking  so  much  about  substitutes 
for  sponges." 

Silvia  could  not  doubt  the  sincerity  of  this:  he 
had  been  thinking  about  sponges;  there  was  the  full 
statement  of  the  case.  And  with  his  acknowledg- 
ment of  that,  his  mere  physical  presence,  the  mere 
glamour  of  his  radiant  animalism,  which,  after  all, 
was  part  of  his  essence  and  his  charm,  captured  her 
again,  whisking  away  for  the  moment  all  possibility 
of  criticism,  or  of  wishing  that  he  could  be  other  than 
he  was.  She  knew  that  her  misgivings — they 
amounted  to  that^ — would  come  flooding  back,  but 
just  for  the  moment  they  were  like  some  remote  line 
of  the  low  tide,  lying  miles  away  across  shining 
levels. 

"Oh,  Peter,"  she  cried,  "if  you  can  design  a  smaU 


PETER  229 

revolving  wash-leather  boxing-glove  to  use  for  a 
sponge,  I'll  promise  to  have  it  made  for  you.  But 
you  must  explain  just  how  it's  to  work.    .    .    ." 

She  broke  off. 

"And  about  your  father?"  she  said. 

"Yes,  I  was  just  going  to  tell  you  when  you  inter- 
rupted about  the  sponge-plan,"  said  he.  "By  the 
way,  I'll  draw  you  the  revolving  boxing-glove.  A 
foot-pedal  below — below,  mind — the  water,  so  that 
your  foot  doesn't  get  cold.  And,  of  course,  you  hold 
the  socket  of  the  boxing-glove — the  wrist,  so  to  speak 
— in  your  hand,  and  it  goes  buzzing  round  as  you 
work  with  your  foot,  and  you  apply  it,  well  soaped, 
to  your  face.  No  more  dead  seaweed  and  lobster 
claws!     My  father  now!" 

Peter  gathered  up  his  knees  in  his  arms,  and  sat 
there  nursing  them.  His  dressing-gown  had  fallen 
off  his  shoulder;  he  looked  like  some  domesticated 
Satyr,  wild  with  the  knowledge  of  the  woodland,  but 
tamed  to  this  sojourn — enforced  or  voluntary — in 
human  habitations. 

"I  went  to  him,  as  you  told  me  to  do,"  he  began. 

Silvia  interrupted  him.  She  wanted  him  to  do 
himself  justice. 

"No,  my  dear;  you  went  quite  of  your  own  ac- 
cord," she  said.    "I  never  urged  you." 

Peter's  eyelids  hovered  and  fell  and  raised  them- 
selves again.  Often  and  often  had  Silvia  noticed 
that  shade  of  gesture  on  Nellie's  face;  but  never,  so 
it  struck  her,  had  she  seen  a  man  do  just  that.  The 
gesture  seemed  to  imply  acquiescence  without  con- 
sent. 

"Well,  I  went  anyhow,"  he  said.  "I  tapped  on  his 
door,  and  as  there  was  no  answer  I  went  in.  He  was 
standing  in  front  of  that  big  Itahan  mirror  in — 


230  PETER 

well,  in  an  attitude.  He  is  intending  to  paint  his 
own  portrait,  when  he  has  finished  that  daub  of 
you." 

Silvia  leaned  forward  towards  him. 

"Oh,  don't  talk  like  that!"  she  said.  ''Don't  be 
ironical — not  that  quite:  don't  feel  ironical." 

Peter  turned  on  her  a  face  of  mild,  injured  inno- 
cence. 

"I  was  telling  you  the  bald  facts,"  he  said. 

"The  balder  the  better,"  said  she. 

'T  told  him  I  had  read  my  mother's  letter,"  he 
continued,  "and  that  there  was  news  in  it  which  he 
had  better  know  at  once.  I  got  him  to  sit  down, 
and  I  got  hold  of  his  hand.  And  then  I  told  him  just 
the  fact  that  she  had  gone  away." 

Peter  shifted  himself  a  little  further  back  in  his 
chair  and  drew  his  legs  more  closely  towards  him,  so 
that  his  chin  rested  on  the  plateau  of  his  knees. 

"I  am  not  being  ironical,"  he  said.  'T  am  trying 
to  tell  you  precisely  what  happened.  He  made  a 
noise — a  gurgle,  I  think  I  should  call  it — and  he 
asked  who  the  damned  villain  was  with  whom  shQ 
had  gone.  And,  to  be  quite  bald,  that  seemed  to  me 
to  be  unreal.  I  said  that  there  wasn't  any  damned 
villain,  and  that  she  had  gone  just  because  she  felt 
she  must  be  free.  He  wanted  to  see  the  letter,  and 
I  told  him  that  I  had  torn  it  up.  Then  he  began 
throwing  his  hair-brushes  and  dress-clothes  into  a 
bag,  in  order  to  start  off  and  look  for  her,  and  asked 
me  where  she  was.  When  I  told  him  that  I  hadn't 
the  slightest  idea,  he  accused  me  of  collusion  with 
her.  I  merely  denied  that,  and  said  that  her  letter 
was  as  great  a  surprise  to.me  as  it  was  to  him." 

Peter  threw  away  the  end  of  his  cigarette. 

"Then  he  began  to  guess  why  she  had  gone.    Now 


PETEK  231 

the  point  of  my  tearing  up  my  mother's  letter  was 
that  he  shouldn't  know,  wasn't  it,  darling?" 

Silvia  heard  herself  assent.  There  was  a  sickness 
of  the  heart  coming  over  her,  something  too  subtle 
for  her  to  diagnose  as  yet. 

"So  he  began  to  guess,"  continued  Peter,  "and  as 
he  tried  to  guess  I  was  sorry  for  him — really  sorry, 
you  understand?" 

Silvia's  heart  began  to  thrive  again. 

"Yes,  yes;  I  knew  you  would  be!"  she  cried. 

"He  soon  hit  on  the  reason,"  said  Peter  quietly. 
"There  could  only  have  been  one  reason,  so  he 
thought,  and  it  filled  him  with  the  utmost  remorse. 
He  had  been  too  big  for  her,  that  was  what  it  came 
to — too  giTat.  He  had  not,  in  the  exaltation  of  his 
art — this  is  quite  what  he  said — remembered  the 
limitations  of — of  the  rest  of  us.  She  had  fainted 
before  the  furnace  of  his  genius.  It  was  all  his  fault: 
he  hadn't  made  allowance  for  the  prodigious  strain 
on  her — for  the  effects,  cumulative  no  doubt,  of  the 
high  pressure.  He  strode  about  the  room,  he  knocked 
over  a  chair " 

Some  fierce  antagonism  to  his  narrative  blazed  up 
in  Silvia.  She  had  wanted  the  facts,  and  here  they 
were,  but  she  had  not  allowed  for  the  baldness  of 
their  presentation,  though  she  had  asked  for  it. 

"Ah,  don't  talk  Hke  that,  Peter,"  she  said.  "You're 
not  a  newspaper  reporter." 

Peter  gave  no  reply  at  all.  There  he  sat  with  his 
chin  on  his  knees,  quit€  silent.  ...  If  Silvia 
chose  to  speak  to  him  like  that  it  was  clear  that  she 
must  either  go  on  or  draw  back;  anyhow,  the  next 
word  was  with  her.  But  all  the  time  that  he  thus 
tacitly  insisted  on  his  rights,  resenting  what  she  had 
said,  there  was  within  him  some  little  focus  of  light 


232  PETER 

breaking  through  from  her  sunlit  altitudes  that  il- 
lumined and  justified  her  protest.  Good  Lord, 
wasn't  she  right?  Wasn't  his  sentiment  towards  his 
father  immeasurably  ignoble  compared  to  the  com- 
prehension of  her  love?  And  that  very  fact — his 
own  unavowable  condemnation  of  himself,  that  is  to 
say — irritated  him.  If  she  was  like  that  there  was 
no  use  in  his  continuing  his  story. 

Silvia  spoke  first.  Humanely,  she  could  not  bear 
this  silence  in  which  Peter  seemed  to  mock  her,  but 
divinely  she  must  be  ever  so  humble. 
Humble?  How  love  sanctified  humihty  and  trans- 
formed it  into  an  ineffable  pride !  She  pushed  back 
her  chair  and  knelt  by  his.  She  longed  to  unclasp 
the  brown  lean  hands  that  enclosed  him  in  himself 
and  make  them  embrace  her  also.  But  that  might 
annoy  Peter:  there  was  a  suggestion  of  "claiming" 
him  about  it.    She  did  not  want  to  claim  him. 

"I  don't  know  why  I  spoke  like  that,"  she  said. 
"I  asked  you  what  happened,  and  you  are  telling 
me.  Will  you  forgive  me  and  go  on?" 

Peter  had  never  seemed  so  remote  from  her  as 
then.  In  the  frantic  telegraphy  of  her  spirit,  which 
seemed  to  be  sending  all  the  love  that  the  waves  of 
ether  would  bear,  there  came  no  response  from  him, 
in  spite  of  his  answer. 

"I  never  heard  such  nonsense,"  he  said.  "We 
should  be  a  pretty  pair  if  we  had  to  forgive.  How 
silly — you  know  it — to  ask  me  to  forgive  you." 

"Show  you  do,  by  going  on,"  she  said. 

It  was  clear  to  him  that  what  she  wanted  was  to 
know  not  his  father's  part  in  this  interview,  but  his 
own.  Whether  she  liked  it  or  not,  he  was  going  to 
be  perfectly  honest  about  it. 

"When  he  knocked  over  a  chair  and  strode  about," 


PETER  233 

he  repeated,  "and  found  out  the  reason  for  my 
mother's  going  away,  I  began  to  be  less  sorry  for 
him.  He  enjoyed  himself:  it  was  all  a  tribute  to  his 
impossible  greatness.  From  then  onwards  I  acted, 
because  he  was  acting.  The  alternative  was  to  tell 
him  that  my  mother  simply  found  his  egoism  intol- 
erable. That  wouldn't  have  done  any  good,  so  I 
agreed  with  him :  that  was  the  best  thing  to  do.  He 
is  in  despair,  a  rather  luxurious  despair.  I  had  either 
to  explode  that  or  let  him  enjoy  it.  So  it  was  no 
use  being  sorry  for  him  any  longer." 

Silvia  broke  out  again;  it  was  her  love  for  Peter 
that  spoke. 

"My  dear,  you  ought  to  have  been  a  million  times 
sorrier,"  she  cried.  "If  he  had  been  just  simply 
broken-hearted  about  it,  it  would  have  been  so  much 
better.  Can't  you  see  that?  Can  you  help  feeling 
it?" 

She  was  shedding  the  gleam  on  him. 

"I  know  what  you  mean,"  he  said.  "But  I'm  tell- 
ing you  what  happened.  I  was  less  sorry  for  him 
when  he  began  to  console  himself.  I  suppose  I'm 
m-ade  like  that." 

Silvia  bit  her  lip. 

"Indeed  you  are  not,"  she  said.  "You're  making 
yourself  out  to  be  hard  and  unloving." 

At  the  moment  the  clang  of  the  dinner-bell  from 
the  turret  just  above  Silvia's  room  broke  in.  .  .  . 
The  whole  neighbourhood  must  know  when  the 
family  at  Howes  were  warned  that  it  was  time  to 
dress,  and  that  three-quarters  of  an  hour  later  it  was 
time  to  dine.  Peter,  on  the  first  evenings  he  had 
spent  here  with  Silvia,  had  asked  whether,  like  a 
Court  Circular,  such  publicity  need  be  given  to  their 
domestic  afi"airs;  but  Silvia,  confessing  herself  senti- 


234  PETER 

mental,  had  told  him  that  her  father  had  delighted 
in  the  installation  of  that  sonorous  announcement. 
The  brazen  proclamation  *'hurt"  nobody,  and 
"Daddy  liked  it."  .  .  .  Certainly  it  served  a  pur- 
pose now,  and  Peter  jumped  up. 

"Lord,  there's  dinner!"  he  said.  "And  I  haven't 
begun  to  dress.  My  father,  by  the  way,  wants  to 
dine  upstairs.  Will  you  tell  them,  as  you  are  so 
much  more  advanced  than  I,  to  send  up  his  dinner? 
I  must  fly." 

Peter  stood  for  a  moment  looking  at  her.  If  a 
situation  between  them  had  not  actually  laid  hold  of 
them,  it  had  thrown  a  shadow  over  them,  and  he 
wanted  to  get  out  into  sunlight  again. 

"Ah,  you  darling!"  he  said  with  a  blend  of  envy 
and  of  admiration  somewhere  gushing  up.  Envy  at 
her  immense  nobility — he  could  think  of  no  other 
word  for  it — and  admiration  at  that  shrine  of  love 
which  rose  from  the  ground  of  her  heart.  It  was  so 
beautiful  an  edifice:  he  despaired  of  being  worthy 
of  it,  and  at  times,  so  he  confessed  to  himself,  he 
wearied  of  its  white  stainless  purity.  .  .  .  Some- 
how this  evening  there  seemed  to  have  opened  a 
little  crack  on  its  soaring  vault,  which  he  must  mend 
somehow. 

"Give  me  a  kiss,  then,"  he  said. 


CHAPTER  XI 

Peter,  though  he  often  hung  a  veil  over  the  real 
workings  and  processes  of  his  mind  for  the  benefit 
and  admiration  of  others,  before  whom  he  was 
anxious  to  present  a  charming  appearance,  was 
honest  with  himself,  and  found,  during  the  next  fort- 
night, without  any  desire  to  dissimulate,  that  he  was 
distinctly  grateful  to  Silvia's  insistence  that  he 
should  not  resign  his  place  in  the  Foreign  Office,  for 
in  the  present  conditions  and  environments  at 
Howes,  it  was  certainly  preferable  to  spend  the 
solidity  of  the  day  in  London  rather  than  enjoy 
uninterrupted  leisure  at  home.  Even  then  the 
evenings  were  full  of  crashes  and  crises  and  intoler- 
able ludicrousness.     .     .    . 

His  father,  who  still  majestically  occupied  the 
state-rooms  (and  showed  no  indications  of  vacating 
them)  moved  along  peaks  and  summits  of  the  ridicu- 
lous, which  his  son  really  believed  had  never  before 
been  trodden  by  foot  of  man.  That  he  was  enjoy- 
ing himself  immensely  Peter  made  no  doubt  what- 
ever, living  as  he  did  on  the  heights  of  egoism,  and 
free  to  indulge  in  the  most  extravagant  exhibition 
of  it.  His  standard  (victoriously  raised),  his  prin- 
ciple, his  determination  (announced  with  magnifi- 
cent gestures  once  if  not  more,  during  the  evening) 
was  that  he  would  remain  rock-like  and  immovable, 
fulfilling  the  destiny  of  his  own  supreme  will,  what- 
ever bombs  Fate  might  choose  to  drop  on  him.  That 
his  whole  soul  was  bitter  with  remorse  for  his  fail- 

235 


236  PETER 

ings  and  failures  he  did  not  deny.  He  should  not 
have  isolated  himself,  as  he  had  done,  in  the  supernal 
reahns  of  Art;  he  should  have  remembered  that  he 
was  a  man  as  well  as  an  artist,  and  had  a  wife  as 
well  as  the  celestial  mistress  of  his  soul.  He  ought 
to  have  been  kinder,  more  tender,  more  indulgent 
to  the  frailty  and  the  weakness  of  his  Carissima. 
But  remorse  (so  waved  his  standard),  if  it  was  the 
genuine  article,  must  express  itself  not  in  idle  repin- 
ings,  but  in  a  manful  facing  of  the  consequences  of 
past  error.  His  remorse  (the  right  kind  of  remorse) 
did  not  weaken,  but  strengthened  a  man  to  go  for- 
ward. He  must  not  lose  touch  with  the  joy  of  life; 
he  must  not  get  from  the  severe  spanking  that  re- 
morse gave  him  only  a  smarting  and  a  humiliation 
of  the  flesh.  He  must  draw  the  lesson  from  his 
punishment,  and  proceed  more  tenderly  but  not  less 
sublimely  than  before.    .    .    . 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  Mr.  Mainwaring 
used  such  expressions  as  "spanking"  in  actual 
speech,  or  that  the  ironical  account  of  his  sublimity, 
as  given  above,  was  verbally  his.  But  such,  any- 
how, was  the  manner  in  which  these  great  tirades, 
delivered  to  Peter  when  he  went  up  to  see  his  father 
on  his  daily  arrival  at  Howes  an  hour  or  so  before 
dinner,  impressed  themselves  on  his  mind.  Usually 
there  was  a  note  for  him  on  the  table  in  the  hall, 
which  ran  something  like  this: 

"My  Peter, — I  am  very  low  and  despondent  to- 
night, and  I  do  not  know  if  I  can  face  a  sociable 
evening.  Come  up  to  see  me,  my  dear,  for  you  are 
the  only  link  which  is  left  to  me  of  those  happy — 
far  too  happy — years,  and  see  if  your  sweet  spirit 
will  not,  like  David  playing  before  Saul,  exorcise  the 


PETER  237 

demons  of  remorse  and  regret  which  shriek  and 
gibber  round  the  head  of  your  unhappy  father.  I 
have  tried  so  hard — ah,  so  hard — all  day  not  to  make 
myself  a  burden  and  a  shadow  to  your  dear  ones, 
but  I  fear  I  have  acquitted  myself  very  ill.  Come 
and  cheer  me  up,  Peter." 

Peter,  to  do  him  justice,  always  went,  and  in  the 
majesty  of  egoism,  his  father,  without  any  en- 
couragement at  all,  would  talk  himself  into  a 
splendid  courage.  At  whatever  cost  to  himself,  at 
whatever  effort  from  worn  and  debilitated  nerve- 
strings,  he  would  show  that  there  was  some  music 
yet  left  in  him.  He  would  twang  his  mental  guitar, 
and  if  the  frayed  string  snapped — well,  his  lawyer 
would  know  that  his  affairs  were  in  order.  .  .  . 
Then,  sooner  or  later,  to  Peter's  great  relief,  the 
sonorous  dressing-bell  would  ring,  and  he  could  go 
and  have  his  bath.  As  likely  as  not,  before  he  defi- 
nitely quitted  the  room,  his  father  would  allude  to 
the  magnificent  1896  port  which  formed  so  admir- 
able a  feature  in  the  cellars  of  Howes. 

Usually  after  the  bath  he  went  in  to  see  Silvia, 
but,  for  some  reason  or  other,  the  spontaneous  non- 
sense of  these  interviews  had  wilted  and  withered. 
Silvia,  so  it  seemed  to  him,  held  herself  in  reserve, 
waiting  for  something  from  him.  Peter  would  give 
an  account  of  his  day,  of  his  talk  with  his  father, 
and  still  Silvia  seemed  to  wait.  She  was  full,  so  to 
speak,  she  was  overbrimming,  with  all  that  she  ever 
had  for  him,  but  to  his  perception  what  she  waited 
for  was  for  him  to  turn  the  winch  of  the  sluice. 

Once  there  had  been  a  really  outrageous  scene 
with  his  father,  in  which,  after  tears,  Mr.  Main- 
waring  had  slid  from  his  chair  with  a  groan,  and  lay, 


238  PETER 

an  ignoble  heap,  upon  the  floor.  Peter  on  this  occa- 
sion had  given  Silvia  a  perfectly  colourless  precis 
of  the  degrading  exhibition,  and  had  endorsed  it, 
brought  collateral  evidence  to  bear  on  its  nature  by 
the  production  of  one  of  the  notes  which  usually 
awaited  him  on  his  return  from  town.  He  had  done 
that  in  some  sort  of  self- justification:  Silvia  could 
not  fail  to  realize  how  trying,  from  their  veiy  un- 
reality, such  scenes  were  for  him,  and  he  gave  her 
also  every  evening  a  very  respectable  specimen  of 
his  patience  with  his  father.  And  yet  he  felt  that 
Silvia  was  not  waiting  for  that;  it  was  not  how  he 
behaved,  how  patient  and  cordial  he  schooled  him- 
self to  be,  that  she  waited  for.  He  was  patient,  he 
was  cordial,  and  though  she  often  gave  him  a  little 
sympathetic  and  appreciative  word  for  his  reward,  it 
was  no  more  than  a  sugar-plum  to  a  child,  some- 
thing to  keep  it  quiet.  What  she  wanted,  what  she 
longed  for  the  evidence  of,  was  an  internal  loving, 
driving  force  which  turned  the  wheels  of  the  ma- 
chinery of  his  impeccable  conduct,  and  that  he  had 
not  got  for  her.  He  spun  the  wheels  with  a  clever 
finger  from  outside. 

But  usually  these  wheels  went  round  merrily 
enough.  He  reported  his  father's  despondence;  he, 
ever  so  lightly,  alluded  to  the  fact  that  he  had 
cheered  him  up,  and  his  estimate  was  justified,  for 
Mr.  Mainwaring,  on  the  crashing  of  the  dinner-bell 
in  the  turret,  would  sometimes  announce  his  progress 
from  the  state-rooms  by  a  jubilant  yodelling,  and 
would  remain  for  the  greater  part  of  dinner  in  a  state 
of  high  elation.  True,  he  would  have  a  spasm  now 
and  then :  if  he  happened  to  have  his  attention  called 
to  Mrs.  Wardour's  pearls,  he  might  for  a  brief  dra- 
matic moment  cover  his  eyes  and  say  in  a  choked 


PETER  239 

voice:  "My  Carissima  had  some  wonderful  pearls"; 
but  then,  true  to  his  manly  determination,  he  would 
dismiss  the  miserable  association  and  become  master 
of  his  soul  again. 

Peter  usually  had  a  second  dose  of  his  father's 
Promethean  attitude  later  in  the  evenmg,  after 
Silvia  and  her  mother  had  gone  upstairs. 

"Your  treasure,  your  pearl  of  great  price,  your 
angel!"  he  would  ejaculate.  "Her  sweet  pity,  her 
divine  compassion!  It  is  she — she  and  you — who 
reconcile  me  to  life.  But  I  must  not  bask  too  long 
in  that  healing  effulgence.  I  must  get  back  to  Lon- 
don ;  I  must  reinstate  myself  in  my  desolate  house, 
and  face  it  all,  face  it  all.  I  must  stand  on  my  own 
feet  again,  poor  sordid  cripple  that  I  am."  Then 
perhaps,  if  quite  overcome,  he  would  bury  his  face  in 
his  hands,  but  much  more  usually  he  would  stand 
up,  throw  out  his  chest,  breathe  deeply,  and  draw 
himself  up  to  the  last  half-inch  of  his  considerable 
stature. 

"Work!"  he  said.  "Work  is  the  tonic  that  God 
puts  in  the  reach  of  all  of  us.  Remember  that,  my 
Peter,  if  grief  and  sorrow  ever  visit  you.  But  then 
you  have  by  your  side  the  sweetest,  the  most  sym- 
pathetic woman  ever  sent  to  enlighten  the  gloom  of 
this  transitory  world.  So  had  I,  by  God,  so  had  I, 
and  I  did  not  recognise  her  preciousness  and  her 
fragility.  .  .  .  Enough !  Silvia !  Did  you  notice 
her  exquisite  love  towards  me  at  dinner  to-day,  when 
for  a  moment  the  sight  of  Mrs.  Wardour's  pearls 
unmanned  me?" 

Peter  on  this  occasion  was  lashed  to  the  extremity 
of  irritation. 

"I  don't  think  I  did,"  he  said.    "I  only  remember 


240  PETER 

that  she  instantly  asked  you  if  you  would  have  some 
more  pheasant." 

He  tried  to  do  better  than  that.  Certainly  there 
was  no  use  in  saying  that  sort  of  thing. 

"But  she  looked  at  you,  father,"  he  added  hastily. 
"You  felt  what  she  was  feeling.    Was  that  it?" 

His  father  clasped  his  hands. 

"A  divine  beam  came  to  me,"  he  said.  "A  mes- 
sage of  consolation.  It  made  me  live  again.  Surely 
you  saw  its  effect  on  me?" 

Peter,  at  such  moments,  longed  for  his  wet  woods. 
He  wanted  to  be  by  himself,  or,  at  any  rate,  with 
someone  who  could  understand  and  enjoy  this  stu- 
pendous farce.  If  only  Nellie,  for  instance,  had  been 
sitting  there  with  him,  how  would  their  eyes  have 
telegraphed  their  mental  ecstasy.  Silvia,  at  this 
same  moment,  would  not  have  served  the  purpose; 
she  might  see  how  ridiculous  his  father  was  being, 
but  below  her  perception  of  that,  which  might  easily 
have  made  her  telegraph  and  smile  to  him,  there 
would  have  been  that  huge,  unspeakable  tender- 
ness which,  when  you  wanted  an  answering  percep- 
tion of  farce,  would  have  spoiled  it  all.  That  uni- 
versal embracing  compassion  required  salting.  Be- 
fore now  she  had  seen,  and  communicated  to  him, 
her  sense  of  his  father's  absurdities,  but  now,  when 
he  turned  trouble  into  an  empty  arena  for  his  pos- 
turing, her  sense  of  comedy  completely  failed  her. 
Or,  if  she  still  possessed  it,  Peter  could  not  get  at  it. 
With  a  flare  of  intuition  he  guessed  that  it  might  be 
unlocked  to  him,  if  only  he  could  use  the  right  key 
to  it.  But  the  key  was  compassion,  and  it  was  he  for 
whom  she  waited  to  thrust  it  into  the  wards.  If 
only  he  loved  they  could  laugh  at  anything  to- 
gether; without  that  the  gate  was  locked. 


PETER  241 

Well,  if  it  was  locked,  he  would  enjoy  his  imper- 
fect vision  of  what  lay  within, 

*'Yes,  I  saw  its  eflPect  on  you,"  he  said,  trying  to 
imagine  that  Nellie  was  here,  enthralled  and  wide- 
eyed.  "You  amused  us  all  very  much  immediately 
afterwards  by  making  that  lovely  sea-sick  passenger 
out  of  an  orange.    Perfectly  screaming!" 

His  father  thrust  his  hands  through  his  hair;  it 
stood  up  like  some  glorious  grey  mane. 

"Yes,  yes,"  he  said,  "I  made  an  effort.  I  won't, 
no,  my  Peter,  I  will  not  lose  sight  of  the  dear  gaieties 
of  life,  God  knows  what  it  costs  me!  Even  after  a 
little  thing  like  that  I  was  more  than  ever  plunged 
in  the  gulf  of  despondency.  I  know  how  wrong  I 
am.  I  must  never  relax  my  efforts;  I  mustn't  give 
myself  time  to  think.  Work  and  laughter — those 
divine  twins." 

He  poured  himself  out  a  glass  of  whisky  and  soda, 
and  chose  a  cigar  with  proper  care. 

"A  word  or  two  on  practical  affairs,"  he  said, 
"before  I  go  to  my  lonely  and  wakeful  bed.  You 
will  be  here,  I  understand,  till  early  in  December. 
By  then  I  trust  (I  insist,  indeed,  on  thus  trusting) 
that  I  shall  have  schooled  myself  to  face  the  desola- 
tion of  my  home  (what  once  was  home)  again.  May 
I,  do  you  think,  ask  to  remain  here  till  then?  I  look 
upon  your  beautiful  Howes  as  my  hospital.  Soon 
still  maimed,  still  limping,  still  in  the  blue  unifomi 
of  pain,  I  know  that  I  must,  indeed  I  insist  on  it, 
face  the  world  again  and  make  the  best  of  my 
shattered  existence.  But  till  then?  Silvia,  whom  I 
consulted  with  regard  to  this  matter,  told  me  that 
you  were  the  master  of  Howes,  and  suggested  my 
speaking  to  you  about  it." 

Peter  saw  an  opportunity.    His  father,  it  is  true, 


242  PETER 

was  an  odious  infliction  of  an  evening,  but  there  was 
something  to  be  gained  by  his  own  eager  tolerance 
of  that,  which  quite  outweighed  the  inconvenience. 
But  he  must  do  more  than  tolerate;  he  must  wel- 
come; and  Silvia — here  was  the  point — must  know 
how  splendidly  he  had  risen  to  it.  Before  he 
answered  he  made  himself  remember  what  the  in- 
tonation of  cordiality  sounded  like. 

''But  that  is  perfectly  charming  of  you,"  he  said. 
"It's  lovely  that  the  suggestion  came  from  yourself. 
She  and  I  may  be  away  for  a  day  or  two  in  Novem- 
ber  " 

Peter  did  not  quite  know  what  arrangement  he 
vras  to  suggest  about  such  days  when  he  and  Silvia 
would  be  away,  for  instance,  on  their  visit  to  Nellie. 
He  was  spared  the  trouble  of  formulating  one  by  his 
father,  who  gave  a  great  gesticulation,  admirably 
expressive  of  courage. 

"I  will  go  home — home  for  those  days,"  he  said. 
"I  will,  with  set  teeth  and  firm  mouth,  begin  to  grow 
accustomed  to  my  desolation  and  lonelmess.  I  will 
learn  to  bear  it,  taking  in  long  draughts  the  inestim- 
able tonic  of  work.  Peter,  Peter" — and  the  voice 
shook — ''when  will  my  Carissima  come  back  to  me?" 

He  was  unmanned  only  for  a  moment,  and  his 
mastery  of  himself  returned  to  him. 

"Was  ever  a  stricken  man  so  blessed  by  the  love 
of  his  children?"  he  exclaimed.  "God  bless  you,  my 
Peter.    You  are  going  to  bed?" 

The  abruptness  of  this  benediction  convinced 
Peter  that  his  father  had  got  what  he  wanted  and 
had  no  more  use  for  him  that  night,  and  he  went 
along  the  corridor  to  his  room  and  Silvia's.  His  first 
impulse  was  to  tell  her  how  cordially,  for  his  part, 
he  had  welcomed  his  father's  suggestion ;  the  second 


PETER  243 

and  wiser  one  was  to  say  nothing  about  it.  Mr. 
Main  waring  was  sure  to  make  the  most  of  it  to  her; 
he  might  even  attribute  to  it  that  force  from  inside 
which  turned  the  wheels.  Yes,  Silvia  should  learn 
about  it  like  that. 

He  let  himself  very  quietly  into  his  room,  and 
undressed  and  went  to  bed  without  going  in  to  say 
good  night  to  her.  If  he  went  in  to  see  her,  it  was 
more  than  likely  that  she  would  ask  him  whether 
his  father  had  alluded  to  the  question  of  his  remain- 
ing with  them,  and  he  wanted  the  information  con- 
cerning that  to  be  conveyed  to  her  by  one  who  would 
give  him,  Peter  felt  sure,  a  florid  testimonial  for 
cordiality.  He  had  passed,  moreover,  a  monotonous 
and  fatiguing  evening,  and  wanted  not  to  talk  at 
all,  but  to  sleep.  His  father  had  been  slightly  more 
dreadful  than  usual,  Mrs.  Wardour  had  more  than 
ever  been  non-existent,  and  Silvia,  so  it  struck  him, 
had  been  waiting,  had  been  watching  him,  not,  it 
need  hardly  be  said,  with  fixed  eye  or  stealthy 
glances,  but  with  some  steady  psychical  alertness 
that  was  incessantly  poised  on  him.  Without  look- 
ing at  him,  without  any  talking  to  him  or  talking 
at  him,  he  had  felt  all  evening — this,  perhaps,  had 
been  the  most  fatiguing  part  of  it — that  she  had 
scarcely  been  conscious  of  anyone  else  but  him. 
Though  her  eyes  were  on  the  cards,  and  she  ruefully 
bemoaned  that  the  goddess  of  piquet,  whom  she 
jointly  invoked  with  Peter's  father,  had  been  so  nig- 
gardly in  her  favours  towards  herself,  it  had  been 
no  more  than  an  automaton  that  was  thus  vic- 
timized to  the  extent  of  three  lost  games,  including 
a  rubicon. 

Peter,  as  he  curled  himself  up  in  bed,  let  his  mind 
stray  drowsily  over  such  details  of  the  evening. 


244  PETER 

coming  back  always  to  this  impression  of  Silvia's 
watching  him.  Whenever  he  spoke  to  her  of  his 
father  she  watched  him — seldom  with  her  eyes — in 
just  that  manner.  By  aid  of  his  quick  perception, 
that  felt  rather  than  reasoned,  Peter  had,  he  was 
sure,  arrived  at  what  she  watched  for  then.  She 
watched  for  some  token,  she  listened  for  some  inflec- 
tion that  indicated  tenderness,  sympathy,  affection 
toward  his  father.  She  could  not  have  been  watch- 
ing for  any  such  token  as  that  for  herself,  for  he  gave 
her  those;  she  knew  they  were  hers.  But  he  had 
never  felt  more  certain  about  anything  in  these  dim, 
vague  regions  of  sentiment  and  desire  than  that  she 
wanted  something  more  than  that  which  he  gave 
her,  and  a  certain  impatience  gained  on  him.  What, 
after  all,  had  been  her  own  first  words  to  him  when 
he  asked  her  to  marry  him?  Had  not  her  face  flamed 
with  the  light  of  the  beacon  that  welcomed  him  as 
she  whispered  that  all  she  asked  was  to  be  allowed 
to  love  him?  At  the  time  that  had  seemed  to  him 
a  divine  intuition,  one  that,  in  a  word,  precisely 
defined  her  way  of  love  and  his. 

There  came  at  that  door  of  his  bedroom  which  led 
to  her  room  the  lightest,  most  barely  audible  of 
touches;  he  was  scarcely  sure  whether  he  had  heard 
it  or  not.  But  he  did  not  reply,  for  either  it  was 
imaginary,  and  needed  no  answer,  or  it  was  Silvia 
come  to  see  whether  he  was  in  his  room  yet.  In  that 
case,  even  more,  an  answer  must  be  withheld,  for 
after  this  evening  of  strain  and  high  pressure  all  he 
wanted  was  to  be  let  alone  and  to  go  to  sleep.  But 
underneath  his  eyelids,  not  quite  closed,  he  watched 
the  door  which  was  opposite  his  bed  and  was  dimly 
visible  in  the  glimmer  of  starshine  that  came  in 
through  the  open  and  uncurtained  window. 


PETER  245 

Round  the  edge  of  the  door,  though  he  had  heard 
no  click  of  a  turned  handle,  there  came  a  thin  "L" 
of  light,  which  broadened  until,  in  the  shaft  of  it, 
appeared  Silvia.  She  held  a  lighted  candle,  which 
she  screened  from  his  bed  with  her  hand,  the  fingers 
of  which,  close  to  the  flame,  were  of  a  warm  trans- 
parent crimson.  Apparently  his  clothes,  tumbled 
together  on  a  chair,  first  caught  her  notice,  and  from 
them  she  looked  straight  towards  the  bed.  Her  face 
was  vividly  illuminated,  and  when  she  saw  him 
lying  there  with  shut  eyes,  some  radiant,  ineffable 
tenderness  came  like  dawn  over  it.  Never  had  he 
seen  so  selfless  and  wonderful  a  beam;  she  might 
have  been  some  discarnate  spirit  permitted  to  look 
upon  him  who  had  been  the  love  of  her  earthly  heart. 
That,  then,  was  how  she  regarded  him  when  she 
thought  she  was  unobserv-ed  by  him ;  he  meant  that 
to  her.  Next  moment,  round  the  half-open  door, 
the  light  naiTowed  and  disappeared,  and  he  was  left 
again  in  the  glimmering  dusk.  Never  had  he  seen 
with  half  such  certainty  and  directness  what  Silvia 
was.  She  had  thought  he  w^as  asleep,  and  so  she 
could  let  free  her  very  soul.  Neither  by  day  nor 
night  had  she  come  to  him  quite  like  that;  all  other 
emotions,  amusement,  interest,  sympathy,  desire, 
passion  even,  had  concealed  rather  than  revealed 
her.  They  had  been  webs  and  veils  across  the  sanc- 
tuary, illumined,  indeed,  by  the  light  that  burned 
there,  but  still  hiding  it.  Now  for  one  moment  Peter 
had  seen  her  with  those  veils  drawn  aside,  the  holy 
place  of  her,  and  her  love  was  the  hght  of  it. 

He  was  sitting  next  afternoon  in  his  room  at  the 
Foreign  Office,  rather  harassed  by  the  necessity  of 
being  polite  to  everybody.    The  clerk  senior  to  him 


246  PETER 

in  his  department  was  on  leave,  and  it  happened 
that  an  extra  King's  messenger  had  to  be  sent  off 
to  Rome,  carrying  a  new  cypher.  That  was  a  per- 
fectly usual  incident  in  Peter's  routine,  but  this 
messenger  was  fresh  to  his  job,  and  had  been  in  and 
out  of  the  office  all  day,  fussy  and  pompous,  wish- 
ing to  be  assured  that  he  had  got  reserved  compart- 
ments and  a  private  cabin.  There  was  a  strike  on 
the  French  railways  going  on,  and  Peter  had  told 
him  that  it  might  be  impossible  to  secure  a  com- 
partment further  than  Paris,  but  all  that  could  be 
done  had  been  done,  and,  anyhow,  he  would  find 
a  seat  reserved  for  him.  Usually  Peter  rather  en- 
joyed applying  soothing  ointments  to  agitated 
people,  and  his  skill  as  a  manipulator  of  pompous 
and  fussy  persons  was  so  effective  that  by  common 
consent  (he  quite  agreeing)  tiresome  officials  were 
often  turned  on  to  him  for  emollient  manipulation. 
But  to-day  the  telephonings  and  the  interruptions 
and  the  pomposity  and  the  prime  necessity  of  re- 
maining dulcetly  apologetic  for  inconveniences 
which  were  wholly  out  of  his  control  had  got  on 
his  nerves,  and  when  finally,  in  answer  to  inquiries, 
it  had  been  determined  that  the  King's  messenger 
had  better,  in  order  to  secure  a  journey  probably 
unvexed  by  strikes,  go  round  by  Southampton  and 
Havre,  Peter  had  been  treated  to  some  very  acid 
talk.  Of  course,  the  man  was  an  ass,  no  one  knew 
that  better  than  he,  and  it  was  ludicrous  to  be  infu- 
riated by  an  ass. 

About  six  then,  that  afternoon,  Peter  had  done  all 
that  patience  and  civil  inquiries  from  French 
station-masters  could  do  for  the  ass,  and  with  un- 
diminished civility  he  had  wished  him  a  pleasant 
journey.    In  half  an  hour,  or,  if  he  chose,  now,  since 


PETER  247 

there  was  nothing  more  that  could  detain  him,  he 
could  telephone  for  his  car  and  slide  down  to  Howes. 
He  did  not  in  the  least  look  forward  to  his  evening 
there;  it  would  assuredly  be  an  evening  of  as  high 
a  pressure  as  the  day  had  been.  His  father  would 
certainly  be  voluble  with  blessings  and  gratitude  and 
Peter  hated  the  prospect  of  these  benedictions.  In- 
stalled as  Mr.  Mainwaring  now  was  for  a  couple  of 
months  more,  he  would  surely  develop  the  idea 
which  he  had  before  now  outlined,  when  he  assured 
Peter  that  duiing  his  daily  absences  in  London  he 
himself  would  act  as  his  vice-regent.  He  had  already 
caused  the  luncheon  hour  to  be  changed  in  order  that 
he  might  get  an  extra  half-hour  of  work  into  the 
morning ;  already  he  had  got  the  estate  carpenter  to 
"knock  him  up"  an  immense  frame  in  which  he  could 
see  his  second  cartoon,  now  dismally  approaching 
completion,  more  satisfactorily  displayed.  And  then 
Peter  thought  of  that  short  candle-lit  glimpse  last 
night,  when  Silvia  had  looked  into  his  room. 

For  one  moment  the  remembrance  of  that  mag- 
netically beckoned  him;  the  next,  as  by  some  inex- 
plicable reversal,  the  needle  of  that  true  compass 
swung  round  and  pointed  in  the  opposite  direction. 
It  no  longer  gave  him  his  course  back  to  Howes;  it 
steadily  pointed  away  from  Howes.  But  even  as 
he  told  himself  how  inexplicable  that  was,  his  sub- 
conscious self  gave  a  convincing  explanation  of  it. 
To  hurry  back  to  Silvia  and  her  watch  of  love,  to 
feel  that  there  were  veils  which  only  he  could  draw 
aside,  but  which,  when  drawn  aside  by  God  knew 
what  aspirations  towards  a  light  he  did  not  compre- 
hend, would  reveal  to  him  again  the  glory  of  her 
sanctuary,  was  a  task  for  saints  and  lovers.  He 
would  rise  to  it  in  time,  he  would  learn  to  be  worthy 


248  PETER 

of  an  ideal  that  somehow,  in  spite  of  its  white  heat, 
had  the  chill  of  asceticism  frosting  it;  but  just  now 
he  longed  for  ordinary,  unreflective,  unstruggling 
human  gaiety.  She — Silvia — lived  naturally  on 
those  heights,  just  as  his  father  lived  in  the  cloud — 
or  the  shroud,  maybe — of  his  own  inimitable 
egoism. 

He  was  tidying  up  his  table,  intending  to  ring  up 
very  soon  for  his  motor  to  take  him  back  to  Howes. 
If  he  started  in  half  an  hour  he  would  have  time  to 
see  his  father  before  dressing,  and  to  talk  to  Silvia 
between  bath  and  dinner.  Then  he  changed  his 
mind  and  determined  not  to  ring  for  his  motor  at  all. 
Instead  he  would  walk  back  across  the  park — no,  not 
across  the  park,  but  up  Whitehall,  and  so  by  streets 
all  the  way  to  Piccadilly.  He  would  have  time  to 
get  a  cup  of  tea  at  home  and  start  from  there  imme- 
diately afterwards.  The  rather  longer  route  by  the 
streets  was  infinitely  preferable.  There  would  be 
crowds  of  ordinary  human  beings  all  the  way,  people 
not  monstrous  on  the  one  hand,  so  far  as  he  knew, 
from  swollen  egoism,  nor  irradiated  by  idealisms 
which  made  you  pant  in  a  rarefied  atmosphere. 
There  would  be  just  masses  of  people,  people  gay, 
people  sulky,  ugly  people,  pretty  people,  but  above 
all  ordinary  people. 

At  the  moment  when  his  tidying  was  complete, 
and  his  table  ready  for  his  next  day's  work,  the  tele- 
phone on  his  table  tinkled.  He  resigned  himself 
to  more  inquiries  from  the  incomparable  ass,  but 
they  could  not  last  long,  for  his  train  left  Waterloo 
within  a  manageable  number  of  minutes.  But  in 
answer  to  his  intimation  that  it  was  indeed  he  who 
waited  at  the  end  of  the  wire,  there  did  not  come 
the  voice  which  he  had  listened  to  so  often  that 


PETER  249 

day,  but  one  quite  other  and  equally  recognizable. 

''Nellie?"  he  said. 

"Yes,  my  dear.  How  lucky  I  am  to  catch  you. 
You're  in  town,  then?" 

"At  the  moment,"  said  he.  "I'm  going  back  to 
Howes  in  half  an  hour." 

"Oh,  what  a  pity!  You  won't  be  in  town  to- 
night, then?" 

"Why?"  asked  Peter. 

"Only  that  Philip  and  I  were  going  to  the  play, 
and  Philip's  got  a  cold  and  thinks  it  wiser  not  to 
go  out.  I  thought  perhaps — just  a  lovely  off-chance 
— that  you  might  come  instead.    Oh,  do,  Peter." 

"Hold  on.    Wait  half  a  minute,"  said  he. 

He  put  the  receiver  down  on  the  table,  seating 
himself  on  the  edge  of  it.  Here  in  excelsis  was  pre- 
cisely what  he  longed  for.  Dinner,  a  theatre,  a  talk, 
all  with  Nellie,  who  represented  to  him  (though  in 
excelsis)  the  ideal  epitome  of  the  world  of  human- 
ity. He  had  thought  a  moment  before,  with  the 
sense  of  anticipating  a  "break,"  the  mere  walk 
through  crowded  streets.  She  would  in  this  pro- 
gramme give  him  all  that  intimately,  she  would  give 
also  the  sense  of  intimate  friendship  without  effort. 
They  would  jabber  and  enjoy 

He  took  up  the  receiver  again. 

"Yes,  all  quite  easy,"  he  said.  "It's  late  already, 
and  when  it's  late  and  I  can't  get  down  there,  I 
can  always  sleep  in  town.  Silvia  and  I  settled  that 
when  I  began  work  again  in  this  doleful  office." 

Nellie  appeared  to  laugh  at  that. 

"Silvia  evidently  spoils  you,"  she  said.  "But  it's 
too  lovely  to  catch  you  like  this.  Will  you  dine 
with  me  at  the  Ritz?  Seven?  The  play — can't  re- 
member what  it  is — begins  at  eight.    So  we  shan't 


250  PETER 

have  to  hurry,  and  can  sit  with  our  elbows  on  the 
table  for  a  bit  and  talk." 

"Sit  with  what?"  asked  he. 

"Elbows  on  the  table/'  said  Nellie  with  elaborate 
distinctness.    "No  hurry — talk." 

This  time  he  laughed. 

"Oh,  don't  let's  go  to  the  Ritz,"  he  said.  "Come 
and  have  elbows  at  my  great  house.  I'll  go  back 
there  now  and  order  dinner.  It'll  probably  be  beast- 
ly, but  it's  more  private.     Shall  we  do  that?" 

"Much  nicer,"  said  Nellie.  "How  are  you,  Peter? 
Oh,  I  can  ask  that  afterwards.  Seven,  then.  War- 
dour  House?" 

"Yes.  Give  condolences  to  Philip.  Not  congratu- 
lations, mind." 

Peter  hung  up  the  receiver,  and  then  took  it  off 
again  at  once  in  order  not  to  give  himself  time  to 
think.  There  would  be  clamour  and  argument  if 
he  thought,  and  he  wanted  nothing  of  that  sort. 
Ten  minutes  afterwards  he  left  the  oflSce,  having 
telephoned  to  the  Jackdaw  that  he  was  detained 
here  and  would  be  obliged  to  sleep  in  London. 

Two  months  had  passed  since  Nellie  and  he  had 
met,  but  whatever  frontier-change  of  limitation  or 
expansion  had  been  decreed  for  each  severally  since 
then,  their  meeting  to-night  had  the  power  to  put 
such  aside,  and  they  hailed  each  other  without  the 
embarrassment  of  altered  circumstances.  Their 
compasses  were  rigidly  in  accord,  and  as  the  excel- 
lent impromptu  meal  proceeded  the  talk  sailed 
towards  northern  lights,  so  to  speak,  in  the  direction 
of  their  steadfast  needles.  Soon  they  were  sitting 
(at  the  elbow  stage)  with  their  coffee  and  cigar- 


PETER  251 

ettes,  with  a  quiet  quarter  of  an  hour  in  front  of 
them  before  they  need  start, 

"Motor  at  ten  minutes  to  eight/'  said  Peter  to  the 
servant,  glancing  at  the  clock.  "Tell  me  when  it 
comes  round." 

He  shifted  his  chair  a  little  sideways  towards  her. 

"Oh,  this  is  jolly,"  he  said,  "for  we've  gone  on 
just  where  we  left  off.  You're  just  the  same.  It's 
two  months,  you  know,  since  I  set  eyes  on  you.  Do 
say  you've  missed  me." 

"What  else  did  you  expect?"  said  she.    "Marriage 

isn't Oh,    Peter,    what's    the    name    of    that 

river?" 

"Thames?"  asked  Peter. 

"No,  the  forgetting  one — Lethe.  Because  I'm 
married  to  Philip  I  don't  forget — other  people.  But 
tell  me,  has  Silvia  been  giving  you  Lethe  to  drink 
instead  of  early  morning  tea?" 

"Not  a  drop.  She's  given  me  everything  else  in 
the  world." 

Nellie  still  had  that  habit  of  plaiting  her  fingers 
together. 

"You  ought  to  be  very  grateful  to  me,"  ^e  said. 
"It  was  I,  after  all,  one  night  at  my  mother's  flat,  do 
you  remember?" 

"I  was  Jacob  that  night,"  remarked  Peter. 

Nellie  frowned. 

"Don't  tell  me  how,"  she  said.  "I  want  to  see  if 
we  think  side  by  side  still.  Ah,  I've  got  it!  Phihp 
was  Esau — isn't  that  clever? — and  I  told  him  I  was 
tired,  and  so  you  supplanted  him." 

"Right.    Get  on,"  said  Peter. 

"Yes,  about  your  gratitude.  It  was  that  night 
that  I  told  you  to  ask  Silvia  to  marry  you.  Didn't 
I?" 


252  PETER 

"Yes.  -hank  you,  dear  Mrs.  Beaumont,"  said 
Peter  effusively.    ''So  good  of  you  to  tell  me." 

"It  was  a  good  idea,  wasn't  it?" 

Nellie's  mind  stiffened  itself  to  "attention"  at  that 
moment.  Before,  it  had  been  standing  very  much 
at  ease. 

"The  best  idea  in  the  world,"  he  said. 

"I'm  awfully  glad,"  said  she.  "What  you  say, 
too,  makes  it  all  the  more  delightful  of  you  to  stop 
up  in  town  to-night,  instead  of  going  back  to 
her." 

Though  up  till  now  they  had  fitted  into  each  other 
with  all  the  old  familiar  smoothness,  it  appeared 
now,  when  they  got  near,  in  their  conversation,  to 
what  had  happened  to  each  of  them  (not,  so  he  still 
felt,  altering  them,  but  putting  them  into  new  cases) 
that  there  was  fresh  ground  to  be  broken;  hitherto 
they  had  only  picked  their  way  over  the  old  ground. 
Nellie  felt  this  even  more  imperatively  than  he. 
They  had  got  to  run  the  plough  (so  why  not  at  once 
on  this  admirable  opportunity?)  through  the  un- 
turned land.  .  .  .  Peter's  servant  had  already  ap- 
peared in  the  doorway,  announcing  the  motor,  and 
she  had  noticed  that,  but  Peter  had  not.  She  con- 
cluded from  that,  that  he,  easy  as  their  intercourse 
had  up  till  now  been,  was  feeling  some  pre-occupa- 
tion.  His  hesitation  in  answering  her  last  acknowl- 
edgment of  his  amiability  in  remaining  in  town  in- 
stead of  going  back  to  Howes,  confirmed  that  im- 
pression. Then,  before  the  pause  was  unduly  pro- 
longed, so  as  to  amount  to  embarrassment,  she  put 
her  word  in  again. 

"I  appreciate  that,"  she  said,  "because  it  shows 
that  the  new  ties  haven't  demolished  the  old.  And 
on  my  side  I  admit,  far  more  definitely  than  you, 


PETER  253 

that  if  my  poor  Philip  must  have  a  cold,  I  am  glad 
— ever  so  glad — it  visited  him  to-night,  so  as  to  give 
me  an  evening  with  you." 

She  swept  her  plate  and  coffee-cup  aside,  to  make 
room  for  an  advance  of  the  elbows. 

"Oh,  my  dear,  I  have  missed  you,"  she  said. 
"Naturally,  however  perfectly  Philip  is  himself,  he 
couldn't  be  you.  My  mind — perhaps  you  haven't 
noticed  it- — has  wonderfully  improved  these  last 
months — I  am  learning  Italian,  and  we  read  Dante 
— but  it  needs  just  a  little  holiday.  And  I've  found 
out  such  a  lot  of  things  about  Philip,  and  all  of  them 
are  good,  worse  luck." 

Peter  looked  up  at  her  with  that  liquid  seriousness 
of  eye  which  to  her  meant  that  he  was  walking  in 
the  wet  woods. 

"Oh,  poor  thing,"  he  said. 

For  some  reason  which  she  did  not  choose  to  in- 
vestigate, Nellie  found  that  remark  immensely  en- 
couraging. Certainly,  a  few  minutes  ago,  she  had 
tried  to  provoke  him  to  talk — really  talk,  but  the 
ironical  perfection  of  his  condolence,  which,  so  she 
felt,  saw  all  round  what  she  was  saying,  made  her 
more  than  acquiesce  in  his  listening  instead  of  talk- 
ing. She  felt  sure  that  this  beloved  Peter  under- 
stood  

"I  knew  you  would  sympathize,"  she  said;  "but 
there's  my  tragic  prosperity.  My  Philip  isn't  lazy 
or  spiteful  and  inconsiderate  or  selfish,  or  bad-tem- 
pered or  greedy  or — or  anything  at  all,  except  that 
he  knows  so  much  about  birds.  He  has  taught  me 
a  lot,  and  he's  quite  absolutely  devoted  to  me.  He 
never  liked  anybody  so  much  as  me.  But  do  you 
know,  darling,  to  a  woman,  at  any  rate,  having  a 
good,  nice  man  quite  devoted  to  her,  as  far  as  his 


254  PETER 

affections  go,  gives  her,  once  in  a  way,  a  little  sense 
of  strain.  She  has  to  find  her  hymn-book  and 
sing." 

"I'll  lend  you  mine,"  said  Peter,  speaking  with- 
out thought,  but  only  by  instinct. 

"Thanks.  When  will  you  want  it  back?  No;  I 
won't  borrow  it.  But  the  fact  is,  that  an  undilutedly 
good  man  wants  something  to  make  him  fizz.  You 
must  have  humour  or  a  vile  temper  or  cynicism  or 
greediness,  or  something  to  make  you  drinkable.  .  .  . 
My  dear,  what  am  I  saying?" 

The  clock  on  the  mantelpiece  struck  the  hour  at 
which  the  curtain  of  their  play  rose;  but  the  chimes, 
eight  sonorous  thumps,  preceded  by  the  quarters, 
penetrated  Peter's  brain  no  more  than  the  announce- 
ment of  the  motor  ten  minutes  ago  had  done. 

"You're  talking  awfully  good  sense,"  he  said.  "At 
any  rate,  you're  talking  a  language  I  can  understand. 
You  always  did;  we  quarrelled  and  wrangled,  but 
we  were  on  the  same  plane." 

"So  we  are  now,  thank  heaven,"  said  she.  "It's 
time  you  gave  me  some  news,  you  know." 

Whatever  pre-occupation  it  was  that  held  Peter, 
he  seemed  to  shake  himself  free  of  it. 

"Yes,  I've  got  news  all  right,"  he  said.  "Domestic 
tragedy." 

"Oh,  my  dear,  what?"  asked  she.  "Nothing 
awful?" 

He  seemed  to  know  for  certain  that  she  was  figur- 
ing in  her  mind  something  about  himself  and  Silvia. 
So,  in  the  upshot,  the  sequel,  the  development,  he 
was.  But  he  tested  her,  so  to  speak,  over  the  domes- 
tic tragedy  itself. 

"My  mother  has  run  away  from  home,"  he  began. 


PETER  255 

Nellie  did  not  laugh.  She  only  bit  her  tongue  with 
firm  purpose. 

"Dear  Peter!"  she  said,  when  she  released  it. 

"She  has  simply  gone,"  he  said.  "Round  about 
ten  days  ago,  when  father  arrived  to  study  his  first 
cartoon,  with  a  view  to  the  rest  of  the  series — Mrs. 
Wardour  bought  it,  by  the  way — gracious  me,  what 
a  lot  we  have  got  to  talk  about," 

"Never  mind  the  cartoon,"  said  Nellie  with 
thrilled  interest.     "Get  on  with  the  tragedy." 

Quite  uncontrollably  Peter's  mouth  began  to 
lengthen  itself.  He  did  not  quite  smile,  but  the 
promise  of  a  smile  was  there. 

"Tragedy,  then,"  he  said.  "My  mother  sent  me 
a  long — oh,  such  a  priceless  letter,  to  say  that  when 
my  father  came  home  again — his  home,  I  mean — he 
would  find  she  had  gone." 

The  Dryad,  the  gay  conscienceless  Nellie,  could 
not,  in  spite  of  her  improved  mind,  quite  contain  her- 
self. 

"But  your  mother?"  she  asked.  "At  her  age? 
How  absolutely  wonderful  of  her!  Do  you  know 
who  he  is?" 

Peter  tried  not  to  laugh,  and  completely  failed  in 
that  dutiful  endeavour.  She  could  but  follow  his 
lead,  and  the  two,  drawing  psychically  nearer  to  each 
other  every  moment,  abandoned  themselves,  just  for 
natural  relief,  to  this  irrepressible  mirth. 

"You  are  such  a  damned  fool,  Nellie,"  he  said  at 
length.  "Do  listen:  don't  be  funny.  It's  quite  dif- 
ferent." 

"  'Pologies,"  said  she,  rather  shakily. 

"It  wasn't  anything  so  romantic,  but  it  was  just 
as  human,"  said  Peter.    "You  know  how  my  mother 


256  PETER 

was  hammered  into  herself — that  phrase  came  in  her 
letter,  by  the  way:  it's  not  original." 

"But  I  never  guessed  there  was  anything  to  ham- 
mer," said  Nellie. 

"Nor  did  I;  at  least,  I  only  half  guessed.  But 
there  was.  A  breaking  point  came,  and  she  couldn't 
stick  to  my  father  any  longer.  She  has  just  gone 
away.  Do  you  remember  how  she  used  always  to  be 
looking  up  hotels  in  railway  guides?" 

"I  remember  that  most  of  all,"  said  she.    "Well?" 

"She's  gone  to  one  of  them.  She's  just  gone  away 
to  be  free,  not  to  lead  somebody  else's  life  any  more. 
When  she  has  got  a  good  breath  of  air,  she  may, 
apparently,  come  back.    But  she  doesn't  promise." 

Nellie  had  grown  quite  serious  again. 

"That's  even  more  wonderful  of  her,"  she  said. 
"She  just  went  away  because  she  wanted  to  be 
herself.  My  dear,  what  a  mother !  And  waiting  till 
you  were  married !    And  your  father?    Go  on." 

This  time  Peter's  mouth  strayed  beyond  the  lim- 
its of  mere  reflective  meditation,  and  smiled  broadly. 

"He  has  discovered,  to  his  complete  satisfaction, 
why  she  left  him,"  he  said.  "He  knows — as  if 
Gabriel  had  told  him — that  his  tremendous  person- 
ality, his  devotion  to  Art,  all  that  sort  of  thing,  was 
too  much  for  her.  He  reproaches  himself  bitterly — 
and  oh,  my  dear,  how  he  enjoys  it — with  having 
failed  to  realise  the  frailty — not  moral — the  weak- 
ness, the  ordinariness  of  other  people.  She  was 
scorched  in  his  magnificent  flames,  and  escaped  from 
that  furnace  with  her  life." 

"But  how  lovely  for  him!"  said  Nellie.  "Lovely 
for  her,  too.  But  why  tragedy?  You  said  it  was  a 
tragedy?" 


PETER  257 

His  whole  body  gave  a  jubilant  jerk.  If  he  had 
been  standing  up  he  must  have  jumped. 

"Ah,  you  do  see  that,  don't  you?"  he  cried.  "I 
just  rejoice  in  her!    At  least,  I  would " 

Nellie  divined  perfectly  well  that  "if  Silvia  un- 
derstood" really  completed  the  sentence.  But  if 
Peter  wished,  for  the  present  anyhow,  to  leave  that 
unspoken,  loyalty  to  their  comradeship  prevented 
her  from  suggesting  it.  Another  motive,  not  less 
potent  than  that,  dictated  her  silence  on  the  point, 
for  she  infinitely  preferred  that  he  should  volun- 
teer some  such  information  concerning  himself  and 
Silvia  than  that  she  should  give  away  her  knowl- 
edge of  it.  Certainly  she  longed  to  know  in  what 
real  relation  he  and  Silvia  stood  to  each  other,  but 
it  would  be  a  tactical  error  (tactical  was  too  busi- 
nesslike) to  let  him  know  that  his  incomplete  sen- 
tence gave  her  so  certain  a  hint. 

"I  see,"  she  said  quickly,  "You  would  rejoice  in 
her  if  it  wasn't  for  your  father." 

Until  the  two  ultimate  words  of  that  were  spoken 
Peter's  eyes  had  been  bright  and  expectant.  He 
evidently  waited  for  the  termination  which  she  had 
refused  to  utter.  When  her  sentence  was  complete 
she  saw,  unmistakably  again,  that  his  eyes  accepted 
and  acquiesced  in  her  conclusion. 

"Quite,"  he  said  in  a  level  voice.  "So  for  the 
present  my  father  is  consumed  with  remorse,  and  is 
occupying  the  state-rooms — you've  never  seen  them; 
gorgeous  tapestry  and  Lincrusta  Walton  ceihngs — • 
till  we  come  up  to  town.  He  is  painting  away  at 
the  series  of  cartoons." 

Peter  poured  himself  out  a  second  cup  of  coffee 
from  the  tray  that  had  been  left  between  them  half 
an  hour  or  more  before. 


258  PETER 

"Aunt  Joanna!"  he  said.  "You  never  heard  such. 
V,  plot  or  saw  such  a  person.  She's  my  mother-in- 
law's  sister,  you  know.  She's  'got  at'  my  father, 
there's  no  doubt  of  it,  and  she's  secured  all  the  car- 
toons by  bribery  and  corruption,  instead  of  their 
being  painted  for  the  gallery — the  Art  Gallery,  I 
should  say — at  Howes.  Aunt  Eleanor — she's  my 
father-in-law's  brother's  wife — has  secured  the 
sketches  for  the  cartoons.  They've  been  to  Howes 
once,  but  my  father  quite  dominated  them.  That 
was  before  the  crash,  so  you  may  judge  how  much 
more,  with  that  added  string  of  tragedy  to  his  bow, 
he  would  dominate  them  now.  They  are  more  price- 
less than  words  can  say.  There  will  be  a  family 
gathering  at  Christmas,  I  understand.  Nellie,  do 
come.  YVe  would  have  such  a  gorgeous  time  if  you 
were  there.  We  would  sit  quiet  and  notice  and 
drink  in,  and  then  we  would  sit  over  the  fire  together 
when  Uncle  John  and  Uncle  Abe " 

"Uncle  Abe?"  asked  Nellie  in  an  awed  voice. 

"Yes.  Sir  Abel  Darley,  K.B.E.,  husband  to  Aunt 
Joanna.  Don't  interrupt.  When  Uncle  John  and 
Uncle  Abe  and  Aunt  Eleanor  and  Aunt  Joanna  have 
gone,  not  staggering  at  all,  but  'full  up,'  to  bed,  we 
would  have  such  holy  convocations  about  them." 

Nellie  had  inferred  a  little  more  information  about 
Silvia  by  this  time,  but  what  occupied  her  most  was 
not  what  she  was  inferring  about  anybody.  It  was 
quite  enough  for  her  to  realize  that  for  the  duration, 
anyhow,  of  the  first  act  of  the  play  which  they  had 
meant  to  see  she  was  in  the  old  full  enjoyment  of 
Peter  again.  They  had  stepped  back  into  the  can- 
dour and  closeness  of  their  friendship,  and  though  he 
had  not,  as  she  had,  confessed  that  he  was  having  a 
holiday,  it  was  transparently  clear  that  this  was  the 


PETER  259 

case.  But  just  there  the  candour  was  clouded;  she 
guessed  that,  even  as  she  was  having  a  holiday  from 
Philip  (God  bless  him),  so  Peter  was  having  a  holi- 
day from  Silvia.  Only — here  was  the  difference — 
he  did  not  or  would  not  own  up  to  that.  Even 
in  the  projected  scheme  of  Christmas-hilariousness 
at  the  uncles  and  aunts,  Silvia  did  not  appear  as  ever 
so  faintly  ridiculous,  or  as  ever  so  faintly  partaking 
in  the  midnight  merriment.  Throughout  their  talk 
Peter  had  kept  her  hermetically  apart.  Once  or 
twice,  Nellie  conjectured,  he  had  pointedly  enough 
refrained  from  introducing  her.  She  could  visualize 
the  rest  of  them  down  at  Howes,  but  the  part  that 
to  Peter  Silvia  played  was  mysteriously  shrouded. 
When  you  were  laughing  at  everybody  all  round, 
why  should  you  except  one  person  from  the  compli- 
ment of  amused  criticism?  It  was  clear  that  Silvia 
had  no  applause  for  the  comedy  of  Peter's  parents, 
for  he  had  so  cordially  welcomed  her — Nellie's — 
appreciation  of  it.  What,  then,  was  Silvia's  line, 
what  was  her  relation,  above  all,  to  Peter? 

She  decided  not  to  burn  all  her  boats,  but  to  set 
fire  to  just  a  little  one. 

"Won't  Silvia  enjoy  them  too?"  she  asked. 

"Can't  tell,"  said  Peter. 

If  there  was  a  lapse  of  loyalty  there,  if,  in  a 
minor  degree,  there  was  a  sense  conveyed  of  dis- 
appointment, though  of  accepting  that  disappoint- 
ment without  comment,  Nellie  decided  that  Peter 
was  not  intending  to  enlarge  on  it.  She  still  (after 
that  small  burned  boat)  clung  to  the  chance  of 
Peter's  volunteering  information,  but  clearly  she 
would  not  get  that  just  now;  and  another  heavy 
booming  of  quarters  from  the  clock  gave  her  an  ex- 
cellent opportunity  of  abandoning  that  which,  after 


2G0  PETER 

all,  had  never  been  a  discussion  on  her  own  initia- 
tive. 

"Good  gracious,  it's  a  quarter  to  nine,"  she  said. 
"You  wretch,  Peter!  We've  missed  one  act,  if  not 
two." 

"Let's  miss  them  all,"  he  said,  "and  have  an  even- 
ing." 

That  made  her  pause,  but  only  for  a  moment. 
Peter  had  consistently  shied  away  from  that  one 
topic  she  wanted  to  hear  about,  and  a  break  of  some 
sort  was  much  more  likely  to  produce  in  him  the 
pressure  that  would  eventually  "go  pop"  than  if 
they  remained  just  sizzling  here. 

"But  we  absolutely  must  go,"  she  said.  "Philip 
will  ask  me  about  the  play,  and  I  couldn't  tell  him 
that  you  and  I  simply  sat  talking  till  it  was  over." 

"Why  not?"  said  Peter. 

"Because  it  isn't  done.  My  dear,  you  and  I  have 
signed  on  to  the  conventionalities  of  life.  Come 
along.  A  bore,  but  there  it  is.  Besides,  how  would 
you  account  for  your  evening  to  Silvia?  Dining  at 
seven,  you  know.  That  requires  a  theatrical  explana- 
tion." 

"Oh,  don't  be  vulgar,"  said  Peter.  "As  if  Silvia 
wouldn't  delight  in  my  spending  an  evening  with 
you." 

"I  know  that,"  said  she.  "Don't  lose  your  sense 
of  humour,  Peter.    It  was  a  mild  kind  of  joke." 

"Come  on,  then,"  he  said.  "And  as  for  its  being 
my  fault  that  we're  so  late " 

The  second  act  was  drawing  to  an  end  when  they 
stole  into  their  box.  On  the  stage  there  was  pro- 
ceeding the  most  elementary  of  muddles,  to  which  it 
was  not  in  the  least  worth  while  to  devote  any  in- 


PETER  261 

genuity.  It  was  clear  at  the  first  glance  that  these 
people  who  pretended  to  be  servants  were  really 
landed  gentry,  and  that  just  before  the  end  the  Earl 
(who  had  taken  the  house)  would  propose  to  the 
cook  and  be  violently  accepted.  Psychologically 
they  presented  no  point  of  interest.  Far  more  en- 
grossing to  Nellie  w^as  the  fact  that  she  had  got 
Peter  with  her,  and  the  pleasure  of  that  and  the 
general  problem  it  propounded  was  far  more  absorb- 
ing. Marriage  had  certainly  quickened  her  emo- 
tional perceptions,  and  she  inferred,  from  the  ex- 
traordinary delight  that  it  was  to  be  with  him  again, 
how  much  in  the  interval  she  had  missed  him.  She 
had  no  reason  to  complain,  either,  of  the  welcome 
he  had  given  her,  but  it  was  manifest  (how  she  could 
not  definitely  have  said)  that  the  quality  of  that 
was  different  from  hers  to  him.  To  his  sense,  as  he 
had  openly  stated,  they  had  taken  up  the  old  atti- 
tude, the  old  intimacy,  without  break,  but  as  she 
thought  over  that  in  the  few  minutes  that  elapsed 
before  the  act  was  finished,  she  found  that,  for  her 
part,  she  did  not  altogether  endorse  his  view.  Cer- 
tainly the  old  intimacy  was  there,  firm  and  un- 
shaken, but  somehow,  hovering  over  it,  like  a  mist 
which  to  her  eyes  seemed  to  be  luminous  with  tears, 
there  was  some  new  atmospheric  condition,  sunny 
and  tremulous. 

Peter  turned  to  her  as  the  house  sprang  into  fight 
again. 

"Oh,  what  a  waste  of  time,"  he  said.  "We  should 
have  done  much  better  to  have  left  our  elbows  on 
the  table.  We're  always  doing  it  too.  Do  you  re- 
member the  last  play  at  which  we  met?  That  time 
you  were  with  Philip  and  I  with  Silvia  and  Mrs. 


262  PETER 

Wardour.  Then  we  had  our  talk  afterwards;  to- 
night we  had  it  first.    I  like  the  other  plan  best." 

Though  Peter  had  here  stated  several  things  with 
which  she  was  in  cordial  agreement,  his  tone  was 
not  in  tune  with  the  old  footing,  the  old  intimacy. 
Not  many  minutes  ago  it  had  been  she  who,  in  op- 
position to  his  inclination,  had  insisted  on  break- 
ing their  tete-a-tete;  now,  with  all  possible  light- 
ness of  touch,  she  suggested  its  resumption. 

''I've  seen  enough,"  she  said.  "I  can  tell  Philip 
all  about  it.  Let's  go  back,  my  dear,  and  have  half 
an  hour's  more  talk.  It  was  my  fault  that  we  broke 
up;  but  how  could  I  have  told  that  the  play  would 
have  been  as  silly  as  this?  We  shall  talk  more  sense 
in  five  minutes  than  they'll  put  into  the  whole  of 
the  next  act." 

Peter's  eyes  were  wandering  round  the  house.  At 
this  moment  they  were  attracted  by  a  feather  fan 
violently  signalling  from  a  box  directly  opposite, 
and  the  general  buzz  of  the  theatre  was  quite  dis- 
tinctly pierced  w'ith  a  shrill  scream  of  laughter 
which  came  from  precisely  the  same  direction  as  the 
gesticulating  fan.  It  was  hardly  necessary  to  put  up 
his  glasses  to  ascertain  the  authorship  of  these  phe- 
nomena. 

"Mrs.  Trentham,"  he  said  unerringly,  "with  the 
usual  myrmidons.  She  has  seen  us,  Nellie.  Come 
round  and  be  conventional." 

"Oh,  why?"  said  she.  "If  she  wants  to  see  us  she 
can  come  here,  can't  she?  But  she  doesn't  want  to 
see  us:  she  only  wants  to  be  seen." 

She  felt  that  at  that  moment  she  was  becoming, 
to  Peter,  part  of  the  general  foreground,  a  prominent 
object  in  it,  but  still  only  part  of  it.  His  next  words 
confirmed  the  impression. 


PETER  263 

"Oh,  come  along,"  he  said.  "Let's  embark  on  the 
ordinary  ridiculous  evening.  Let's  all  go  back  to 
supper  with  me.  Or  perhaps  there's  a  dance  going 
on.  Come  round  and  forage,  Nellie.  I've  been  in 
the  country  for  a  month,  you  know.    Besides " 

She  knew  perfectly  well  what  he  had  left  unsaid, 
and  answered  it. 

"But  what  does  it  matter  how  much  she  talks?" 
she  asked. 

Peter  gave  her  a  glance  of  brilliant  surprise. 

"How  did  you  know  that  that  was  what  I  didn't 
say?"  he  demanded. 

"Because  it's  you,  of  course.  Or,  if  you  like,  be- 
cause it's  me." 

The  fan  waved  more  vehemently  than  ever. 

"We'd  better  go,"  said  he. 

Nellie  got  up.  In  the  old  days  she  would  almost 
certainly  have  been  able  to  superimpose  her  wish 
over  his.  Now  it  was  the  other  way  about.  She 
seemed  to  be  in  the  grip  of  some  internal  necessity 
of  doing  what  he  wanted.  He  had  to  have  his  way, 
not  because  he  had  become  stronger  of  will,  but 
because  she  had  lost  her  power  of  self-assertion  with 
regard  to  him.  It  was  not  any  general  debility  of 
will  on  her  part;  she  had  her  way  with  Phihp,  for 
instance,  with  an  effortless  ease.  But  then  she  was 
not  part  only  of  the  foreground  to  Philip,  nor  to  her 
was  Peter  part  only  of  the  foreground.  .  .  . 


CHAPTER  XII 

Peter  managed  to  get  away  from,  the  Foreign 
OflBce  next  day,  in  the  absence  of  anything  to  detain 
him,  an  hour  or  so  before  his  usual  time,  and  arriv- 
ing at  the  gilded  gates  of  the  battlemented  lodge 
of  Howes  while  the  warm  October  twilight  still  lin- 
gered in  the  sky,  he  got  out  to  walk  across  the  mile 
of  park  that  separated  hmi  from  the  house.  His 
truant  evening  m  town  last  night,  the  plunge  into 
the  froth  and  noise  and  chatter,  had  quieted  some 
sort  of  restlessness,  had  assuaged  some  sort  of  hun- 
ger, and  he  was  still  licking  the  chops  of  memory, 
content  in  a  few  minutes  now  to  "wipe  his  mouth 
and  go  his  journey"  again.  He  just  had  the  sense 
of  having  enjoyed  an  evening  out,  of  having  lolled  in 
the  old  familiar  tap-room,  with  the  usual  habitues, 
over  a  pot  of  beer,  while  a  friendly  barmaid  (this 
was  Mrs.  Trentham)  made  the  usual  jokes  over  the 
counter  as  she  served  him.  Some  of  these  seemed 
to  have  sounded  better  by  electric  light,  30  to  speak, 
than  did  the  timbre  of  their  memory  in  the  dusky 
crimson  of  the  dying  day,  and  he  recalled  the  wel- 
come of  screams  and  shrieks  she  had  given  to  Nellie 
and  himself  when,  at  his  insistence,  they  had  visited 
her  in  the  box  opposite.  She  threatened  when  she 
learned  they  had  already  dined  alone  (appearing 
so  very  late  at  the  play)  to  send  anonymous  letters 
to  Silvia  and  Philip.  There  was  a  judge  in  the 
divorce  court,  she  added,  who  was  much  devoted  to 
her,  and  would  no  doubt  give  her  admission  for  the 

264 


PETER  265 

two  cases  when  they  came  on.    The  robust  wit  of 
Lord  Poole  had  ably  seconded  her. 

Then,  with  the  exception  of  Nellie,  who  had  to  go 
home  to  put  an  end  to  Philip's  solitary  evening,  they 
had  all  gone  back  to  Wardour  House,  where  Peter 
promised  some  sort  of  scratch  supper,  and  Nellie, 
finding  that  her  husband  had  already  gone  to  bed, 
joined  them  again.  It  had  been  altogether  a  pleas- 
ant ridiculous  evening  which  had  made  itself,  in  this 
impromptu  and  accidental  manner,  an  ordinary  hu- 
man evening.  Just  twice  there  had  for  Peter  been 
a  slight  check,  a  signal  momentarily  against  him — 
once  when  he  found  that  Nellie  had  left  again,  very 
soon  after  her  reappearance  at  supper,  without  a 
word  to  him;  once  when,  without  warning,  it  had 
entered  his  mind  that  at  just  about  this  time,  the 
night  before,  he  had  seen  his  bedroom  door  open, 
and  Silvia's  face  look  in  on  him  as  he  lay  with  closed 
eyelids,  feigning  sleep.  That  was  rather  a  dreadful 
thing  to  have  done.  .  .  . 

He  paused  a  moment  on  the  bridge  that  crossed 
the  lake,  looking  at  the  image  of  the  house  duskily 
reflected  on  its  far  margin.  There  was  someone  com- 
ing towards  him  along  the  path  that  led  along  the 
edge  of  the  lake,  and  joined  the  road  here,  and  before 
his  eyes  had  time  to  tell  him  who  it  was,  she  waved 
a  hand  at  him,  without  the  screams,  without  the 
violent  gesticulations  by  which  Mrs.  Trentham  the 
night  before  had  made  herself  known.  She  quick- 
ened her  pace  as  he  answered  her  signal,  and  in  three 
minutes  more  he  had  joined  her. 

"The  chauffeur  told  me  you  had  walked  from  the 
lodge,"  she  said,  "so  I  came  to  meet  you.  You're 
early." 

Peter  kissed  her. 


266  PETER 

"I'll  go  away  again,  shall  I?"  he  said. 

"No;  as  you've  come,  you  can  stop,"  she  said. 
"And  what  did  you  do  with  yourself  last  night?  Not 
all  alone,  I  hope:  you  found  somebody?" 

Peter  smiled  at  her. 

"Somebody?"  he  said.  "Crowds!  First  of  all, 
Nellie  rang  up  at  the  F.O.,  saying  that  she  had 
been  going  to  the  play  with  Philip,  but  that  he  had 
a  cold.  So  would  I?  We  dined  at  home  first,  and 
talked  so  long  with  elbows  on  the  table  that  we 
didn't  get  to  the  play  till  toward  the  end  of  the 
second  act." 

"Ah,  that  was  luck  to  find  Nellie,"  said  Silvia. 
"I  w^as  afraid  you  might  have  a  horrid  lonely  even- 
ing.   And  then?" 

"Then  just  one  act  of  Downstairs..  But  one  act 
was  better  than  four.  There  had  been  railway 
whistles  and  flags  waving  from  the  box  opposite." 

"That  was  Mrs.  Trentham,"  said  Silvia. 

"It  was.  So  we  swept  in  her  lot — the  usual  one — 
with  Lord  Poole,  who  told  me  to  kiss  you  for  him, 
and  they  all  came  to  supper  at  home.  Really,  that 
plan  of  keeping  the  house  open  was  an  admirable 
one.  It's  awful  fun  doing  that  sort  of  thing,  and  we 
talked  and  smoked  and  laughed  until  everyone 
melted  away." 

She  saw  (and  loved  to  see)  the  brightness  and 
briskness  of  him;  she  heard  (and  loved  to  hear)  his 
cheerfulness  and  alacrity. 

"Oh,  I  am  glad  you  had  a  nice  evening,"  she 
said.  "I  nearly  telephoned  to  say  I  was  coming  up 
to  keep  you  company.  But  then  I  thought  I  had 
better  stop  and — and  try  to  make  myself  disagree- 
able at  home." 

"Did  you  succeed,  darling?"  asked  Peter. 


PETER  267 

Exactly  then  it  struck  Silvia  that  if  Peter  had 
dined,  had  sat  "so  long"  with  elbows  on  the  table, 
and  had  got  to  the  theatre  in  time  for  anything  at 
all,  he  could  not  have  been  detained  very  late  at 
the  Foreign  Office.  She  instantly  drew  down,  with 
a  rush  and  a  rattle,  some  mental  blind  in  front  of 
that.    She  shut  it  out:  she  did  not  choose  to  see  it. 

"Yes,  pretty  well,"  she  said.  "Mother  went  to 
bed  at  ten,  anyhow,  which  is  early  for  her,  so  I 
must  have  been  fairly  successful." 

"Not  proved,"  said  Peter.  "She  may  have  been 
sleepy.    It's  a  sleepy  place,  you  know." 

"I  know,"  she  said.  "Two  nights  ago  I  came  and 
looked  into  your  room,  as  I  had  not  heard  you  come 
to  bed,  and  there  you  were,  fast  asleep." 

"Snoring,  I  suppose  you'll  tell  me?"  said  he. 

This  point  about  detention  at  the  Foreign  Office, 
with  time  yet  to  dine  and  confabulate  and  go  to  the 
theatre,  had  struck  him  too.  He  had  meant  it  to  be 
assumed  that  he  had  telephoned  to  signify  the 
knowledge  that  he  would  be  detained,  and  now  by 
this  stupid  inadvertence  in  giving  the  account  of  his 
evening,  he  had  shown,  for  all  who  cared  to  think, 
that  he  had  not  been  detained.  But  Silvia  appar- 
ently had  quite  missed  that,  or  she  would  surely  have 
said  something  to  that  effect;  as  it  was,  she  passed 
it  by:  it  was  out  of  sight  by  now,  behind  another — 
well,  another  misunderstanding. 

She  proceeded  to  put  a  further  corner  between  her 
consciousness  and  it. 

"No,  I  don't  say  snoring,"  she  said.  "Oh,  Peter, 
your  father  has  told  me  how  delightful,  how  angelic 
you  were  to  him,  about  his  stopping  on  here  till  we 
go  back  to  London.    It  touched  him  very  much." 

She  took  his  arm.     "It  touched  me  too,  dear,"  she 


268  PETER 

said,  "and  I  must  tell  you  that  it  furnished  a  reason 
— one  out  of  several — why  I  came  to  meet  you.  I've 
got  a  confession " 

Peter  guessed  what  this  reason  was  and  what  the 
confession.  When  he  made  a  plan  he  was  quite 
accustomed  to  find  it  work  itself  out  as  he  had 
meant.  But  now  in  the  very  apex  of  its  success  he 
felt  ashamed  of  it.  If  it  came  to  confessions  he 
could  make  his  contribution.    He  interrupted  her. 

"I  don't  care  about  that  reason,"  he  said.  "Tell 
me  the  other  ones  instead." 

"The  other  ones  will  come  afterwards,"  she  said, 
"if  you  want  to  hear  them  then.  This  has  got  to 
come  first,  so  don't  interrupt,  darling.  I  will  tell 
you :  it's  an  affair  of  conscience." 

"And  I'm  a  conscientious  objector,"  said  he.  As 
it  became  more  and  more  certain  in  his  mind  what 
Silvia's  confession  was,  the  less  he  wanted  to  hear 
it,  though  he  himself,  patting  his  own  back  for  his 
cleverness,  had  contrived  the  plan  of  which  this  was 
the  logical  sequel.  But  when  he  did  that  he  had  not 
yet  pretended  to  be  asleep  one  night  nor,  on  another, 
telephoned  his  detention  in  town. 

Silvia  went  on  with  a  gentle  but  perfectly  deter- 
mined firmness. 

"I've  misjudged  you  altogether,  Peter,"  she  said, 
"and  I've  got  to  confess.  For  days  now — more  days 
than  I  like  to  number — I  have  been  watching  you, 
looking  for  something  I  missed  in  you.  I  thought 
you  were  unkind  and  sarcastic  and  cynical  about 
your  father,  and  what  he  told  me  of  the  manner  in 
which  you  welcomed  his  proposal  to  stop  on  here 
convinced  me  how  utterly  I  had  been  wronging  you. 
It  was  owlishly  stupid  of  me  to  suppose  you  could 


PETER  269 

be  like  that,  and,  what  was  worse,  it  was  brutally 
unloving." 

Peter  laughed. 

"Any  more  big  words  coming?"  he  asked.  "Owl- 
ish, stupid,  brutal,  unloving?  That's  you  all  over. 
Have  you  murdered  anybody?" 

She  shook  her  head. 

"It's  no  use  making  light  of  it,"  she  said.  "It 
was  stupid,  it  was  unloving  of  me.  I  thought  that 
because  you  saw  certain  absurdities  and  unrealities 
about  your  father,  you  saw  nothing  but  them,  and 
were  impatient  and  untender  with  him.  Do  you 
forgive  me  for  being  such  a  fool?" 

Peter  tried  to  imagine  himself  telling  her  that  she 
had  been  perfectly  right  throughout:  that  only  a 
piece  of  trickery^  on  his  part,  in  getting  his  father  to 
give  an  account  of  the  welcome  his  proposition  had 
met  with,  had  deluded  her  into  thinking  she  was 
wrong.  But  his  vanity,  the  thought  of  the  sorry 
figure  he  would  present,  made  it  quite  impossible  to 
contemplate  so  fundamental  an  honesty.  Short  of 
being  honest,  he  had  better  be  superb. 

He  stopped,  facing  her,  knowing  well  the  effect 
his  physical  presence  had  on  her. 

"You  darling,  there's  one  thing  I  don't  forgive 
you  for,"  he  said,  "and  that  is  for  being  such  a  fool 
as  to  think  there  was  anything  for  me  to  forgive." 

Even  as  he  made  this  neat  phrase,  the  truth  of  it 
came  home  to  him.  There  was  indeed  nothmg  for 
him  to  forgive.    She  gave  a  long  sigh. 

"Oh,  you  must  teach  me  to  be  generous,"  she 
said. 

Peter  felt  himself  unutterably  mean  at  that  mo- 
ment. But  the  thing  was  done ;  he  had  been  superb 
as  well  as  dishonest,  and  if  honesty  had  been  too 


270  PETER 

high  for  his  vanity  to  attain  to,  it  was  just  as  in- 
capable of  demohshing  the  golden  image  of  himself 
that  he  had  set  up  for  Silvia.  Then  there  was  the 
point  concerning  his  apparent  slumber  two  nights 
ago;  there  was  the  point  concerning  his  telephone 
last  night.  .  .  .  He  wished  intensely  that  she  hadn't 
asked  him  to  teach  her  generosity. 

"Now  for  the  other  reasons  why  you  came  to  meet 
me,"  he  said.  There  would  be  balsam  and  food  for 
his  vanity  here.  He  had  the  grace  to  recognize  that 
even  while  he  asked  it. 

"Because  I  wanted  to  see  you,"  said  she. 

"I  like  that  reason.  Have  you  any  more  of  that 
brand?" 

He  knew  that  the  word  which  took  lightly  what 
was  so  immense  would,  after  her  confession,  cause 
her  to  smile.  It  was  of  the  species  which  she  had 
thought  cynical,  and  which  she  now  knew  was  just 
the  everyday  garb  in  which  affection  and  tenderness 
clothed  themselves. 

"Because  it  seemed  so  long  since  I  saw  you,"  she 
said.  "Oh,  Peter,  there's  only  one  reason  really 
which  matters.    Because  I  love  you." 

.  .  .  And  that  brought  home  to  him  a  meanness, 
a  dishonesty  against  which  all  the  rest  was  but  feath- 
ers in  a  scale  weighted  on  the  other  side  with  the 
world  itself.  Often  before  now  he  had  known  how 
unintelligibly  great  that  was;  now  for  the  first  time 
he  was  irritated  at  himself  for  his  want  of  com- 
prehension with  regard  to  it.  He  was  accustomed 
to  understand  things  to  which  he  gave  his  mind,  but 
here  his  mind  was  brought  to  a  dead  stop  by  this 
great  shining  wall  that  was  unscalable  and  impene- 
trable.   But,  to  be  honest,  was  his  irritation  quite 


PETER  271 

confined  to  himself,  or  did  that  shining  wall  from  its 
very  incomprehensibility,  provoke  a  portion  of  it? 

Silvia  seemed  to  herself  to  miss  something  in  his 
silence,  but  with  Peter  there,  nothing  could  really  be 
missing.  .  .  . 

"How  often  I  say  that,"  she  whispered ;  "but  how 
often  I  feel  that  there's  nothing  else  worth  saying." 

"More  of  that  brand,"  said  he. 

"Not  a  drop.  We  must  go  in.  You  haven't  seen 
your  father  yet,  and  after  that  you  must  have  your 
bath." 

"And  after  that  you  must  send  your  maid  away 
so  that  we  can  get  a  few  minutes'  sensible  conversa- 
tion," said  Peter. 

"I'll  begin  it  now,"  said  she.  "Sometimes,  you 
know,  your  bath  goes  to  your  head,  and  you're  not 
quite  as  serious  as  you  might  be." 

"Say  I'm  drunk  and  have  done  with  it,"  suggested 
he. 

"Very  well ;  sometimes  your  bath  makes  you  tipsy. 
But  while  you're  sober,  I  want  you  to  promise  me 
something." 

"Shall  I  like  it?"  asked  Peter  prudently.  "It  isn't 
to  spend  a  week  with  Uncle  Abe  or  anything  of  that 
kind?" 

"Nothing  of  that  kind.  Poor  Uncle  Abe!  You'll 
like  it.  At  least,  you'll  find  you'll  like  it;  you'll 
know  it  does  you  good." 

"That's  not  the  same  thing,"  objected  he.  "It 
does  me  good  to  get  up  bright  and  early,  so  as  to 
start  for  town  without  hurrying,  but  I  hate  it." 

Silvia  laughed. 

"It  will  relieve  you  of  that  to  some  extent,"  she 
said.  "Oh,  do  be  quick  and  promise  instead  of 
making  such  a  fuss!" 


272  PETER 

"Right.  But  if  you've  deceived  me,  I'll  never 
trust  you  again.    I  promise." 

"Well,  for  as  long  as  we  are  here  I  want  you  to 
spend  at  least  one  night  in  the  week  in  town." 

"I  shall  do  nothing  of  the  kind,"  said  he.  "I  don't 
care  an  atom  about  my  promise.  Pish  for  my  prom- 
ise! And  how  will  it  relieve  me?  Oh,  I  see.  But  I 
shan't — unless  you  come  too,  that's  to  say." 

Silvia  stopped. 

"Now  listen  to  me,"  she  said.  "You  enjoyed  last 
night  immensely.  It's  perfectly  natural  that  you 
should  have.  I  should  think  you  were  ill  if  you 
hadn't." 

"How  do  you  know  I  enjoyed  it?  I  never  said 
so,"  said  he. 

"You  did  better  than  that.  You  beamed  all  over 
your  atrocious  countenance  when  you  told  me  about 
it.  You  were  obliged  to  stop  in  town,  and  being 
obliged  you  found,  and  you  know  it  perfectly  well, 
that  it  was  a  sort  of  night  out.  You  saw  your 
friends:  you  had  a  beano." 

Silvia  kept  her  finger  on  the  cord  of  the  blind  she 
had  chosen  to  pull  down  in  her  mind.  She  refused 
with  a  sublime  intellectual  dishonesty  to  look  at  the 
fact  that  Peter  certainly  could  have  come  down  here 
by  dinner  time  if  he  had  time  to  dine  early  in  town  ; 
she  would  not  see  it.  Already,  so  she  told  herself, 
she  had  once  fallen  into  an  owlishly  stupid  error 
and  worse,  by  doubting  him,  by  watching  him ;  now 
at  least  she  could  repair  that  to  some  extent  by  the 
supreme  honesty  of  trusting  him  without  question. 
Something  had  happened  to  keep  him  in  town,  and 
it  was  no  business  of  hers  to  think  of  that  at  all.  He 
had  said  he  was  detained  at  the  Foreign  Ofiice,  and, 
for  her,  he  was  detained  there.    She  held  her  eyes 


PETER  273 

open  to  the  intensest  light  of  all,  which  was  that  of 
her  own  love,  and  the  more  it  blinded  her  to  every- 
thing else  the  better.  It  was  only  creatures  like  bats 
(and  owls),  things  of  the  night,  that  were  blinded 
by  the  dayspring. 

"You  enjoyed  it:  you  had  a  beano,"  she  repeated. 
"Why  not  say  so?" 

Peter  hesitated,  but  for  a  reason  that  she  had 
refused  to  entertain  the  existence  of.  The  fact,  now 
shiningly  clear,  that  Silvia  had  never  so  remotely 
seen  that  he  could  easily  have  got  down  here  in  time 
for  dinner,  made  it  unintelligibly  and  unreasonably 
needful  for  him  to  tell  her  so.  There  was  some- 
thing sordid  in  not  doing  so.  Had  she  shown  the 
smallest  suspicion  of  it,  he  would  probably  have  ex- 
plained it  away  in  some  ingenious  manner. 

"Yes,  I  enjoyed  it,"  he  said.  "That  was  why  I 
did  it.  I  could  easily  have  got  down  here  in  time 
for  dinner." 

Up  went  the  blind  at  that  with  a  snap  and  a 
whirr,  and  Silvia's  face,  beaming  and  delighted, 
smiled  out  at  him. 

"Oh,  Peter,  how  lovely  of  you  to  tell  me,"  she 
cried.  "Of  course,  I  guessed,  only  I  wouldn't  guess. 
There's  just  the  joy  of  it  all." 

That  came  from  her  like  the  stroke  of  a  bird's 
wing,  that  bore  it  through  the  sunny  air.  With 
another  stroke  she  returned  to  him. 

"Now  you've  got  no  excuse  for  refusing  my  beau- 
tiful plan,"  she  said.  "And  it  was  nice  of  you  not 
to  tell  me  at  once:  you  knew  you  had  to  some  time, 
and  it  was  all  the  better  for  keeping.  My  dear, 
there's  the  dressing-bell.  Just  go  and  see  your  father 
for  a  minute:  you  can  talk  to  him  in  the  smoking- 
room  after  mother  and  I  have  gone  to  bed." 


274  PETER 

As  Silvia  heard  through  her  bedroom  door  the 
splashings  and  the  rinsings  and  the  gurglings  which 
regulated  her  own  speed  of  dressing,  she  was 
absorbed  in  the  perception  of  the  one  thing  that  was 
great,  or  its  original  manifestations.  Up  the  trunk 
of  the  tree  and  through  the  branches  and  to  the 
remotest  ends  of  the  twigs  flowed  the  sap,  and  all 
— the  firmness  of  the  trunk,  the  vigour  of  the 
branches,  the  elasticity  of  the  twigs,  the  decoration 
of  flower  and  leaf  and  fruit  which  made  the  tree 
lovely — were  manifestations  and  embodiments  of  the 
sap.  If  there  was  a  wound  in  its  bark,  the  sap 
healed  it;  if  there  was  a  nest  among  its  boughs,  an 
external  loveliness  of  life  which  visited  it,  it  was 
still  the  sap  which  had  fashioned  its  anchorage.  The 
remotest  leaf  of  that  tower  of  forest  greenery  was 
nurtured  by  it,  and  all  the  being  and  the  beauty 
sprang  from  it.  .  .  .  There  was  nothing  big  or  little, 
if  you  looked  at  it  in  that  way,  though  just  now  she 
had  decided  that  only  one  thing  was  big  and  all  the 
rest  was  little.  .  .  . 

Then  came  a  rare,  an  unusual  splash.  Occasion- 
ally when  Peter  began  to  stand  up  in  his  bath  after 
the  hot  soaking,  he  fell  down  again ;  his  foot  slipped 
en  the  smooth  surface,  and  this  made  the  rare  and 
enormous  splash.  This  always  caused  her  a  certain 
anxiety:  he  might  hit  his  head  against  the  edge  of 
the  bath.  .  .  . 

"Just  tap  at  the  bathroom  door,  Wilton,"  she 
said,  ''and  ask  if  Mr.  Mainwaring  is  all  right."  .  .  . 
But  before  the  chaste  Wilton  could  get  as  far  as  the 
door,  a  new  splashing  began.  ''It  doesn't  matter, 
Wilton,"  she  said. 

"Your  pearls,  ma'am?"  asked  Wilton. 


PETER  275 

Then  came  the  tap  at  the  door,  and  Wilton  slid 
out  of  the  picture. 

"I  fell  down,"  said  Peter.  "I  might  have  hurt 
myself,  but  I  didn't.  I  wish  you  weren't  so  won- 
derful." 

'T  can't  help  that,"  said  she.  'Tou  should  have 
thought  of  it  before," 

Peter  began  dr^-ing  his  toes. 

"I've  had  quite  a  long  talk  with  my  father,"  he 
said.  "He  thinks  you're  wonderful,  too.  He  adores 
you:  they  all  adore  you,  pailicularly  Lord  Poole." 

"Peter,  don't  be  tipsy,"  said  she. 

"I  shall  be  as  tipsy  as  I  like.  I  want  to  know 
one  thing.  Why  weren't  you  annoyed  with  me  for 
saying  that  I  couldn't  get  back  last  night?" 

Silvia  held  out  the  pearls  for  him  to  clasp  round 
her  neck. 

"If  you  don't  understand  that,  you  must  be  tipsy," 
she  said. 

"And  if  I  do?"  he  asked. 

She  leaned  her  head  a  little  back. 

"Why,  then  you  understand  it  all,"  she  said. 
"You  understand,  for  instance,  why  I  insist  on  your 
having  a  night  in  town  every  week." 

"Yes,  I  see.  Just  that  you  shall  get  rid  of  me 
now  and  then,"  he  said. 

"Quite  right.  You're  as  sober  as — as  a  commoner, 
I  suppose." 

She  moved  in  her  chair,  and  one  end  of  her  neck- 
lace slipped  from  his  fingers. 

"Am  I  putting  them  on  for  dinner,"  he  asked,  "or 
am  I  taking  them  off  for  bedtime?" 

"Whatever  you're  doing,  you  are  being  wonder- 
fully clumsy,"  said  she,  as  his  fingers,  warm  and 
soft  from  his  bath,  touched  the  back  of  her  neck. 


276  PETER 

She  was  down  before  hiin  next  morning  to  give 
him  his  breakfast,  and,  waiting  for  him,  strolled  out 
on  to  the  terrace.  There  had  been  one  of  those 
exquisite  early  October  frosts,  and  in  the  air  was 
that  ineffable  fragrance  derived  from  absence  of 
smell,  the  odourless  odour  of  frosted  dew.  The  sun 
was  already  warm  with  promise  of  a  hot,  cloudless 
day;  but  as  yet  the  heat  had  not  set  in  motion  the 
weaving  of  the  scents  of  earth  and  grass  and  flowers 
which  would  soon  decorate  and  veil  the  virginal 
beauty  of  the  morning.  Last  night,  when  she  and 
Peter  had  lingered  here  in  the  end  of  the  twilight, 
the  air  was  not  less  clear  and  windless,  but  it  had 
been  charged  with  all  the  myriad  scents  distilled  by 
the  hot  hours  of  autumn  sun.  Now  there  was  a  pre- 
cision, a  crystalline  quality.  .  .  .  Some  such  sort  of 
clear  sparkle  bathed  her  spirit  also ;  her  love  basked 
in  some  such  virginal  beauty  of  young  day,  flame- 
like and  scentless. 

All  the  evening  before,  from  the  time  when  she 
met  Peter  by  the  lake,  she,  body  and  soul  and  spirit, 
had  been  rising  towards  some  new  peak  of  passion, 
and  the  true  topmost  summit  seemed  to  her  now 
to  be  where  she  stood  in  this  cool  brightness,  able  to 
see  that  the  upward  path  which  led  here  was  below 
her.  They  had  dined  after  Peter  had  clasped  her 
necklace  for  her;  there  had  been  the  usual  piquet 
for  her  and  Mr.  Mainwaring,  and  for  the  latter  a 
triumphant  psean  of  achievement  over  some  effect  of 
lightning  in  the  second  cartoon,  which  positively,  as 
he  stood  aside  as  artist  and  became  spectator,  ap- 
palled him,  and  before  they  settled  down  to  their 
cards  he  must  needs  conduct  them  to  the  master- 
piece in  question,  and  let  them  also  feel  the  cold 
clutch  of  fear. 


PETER  277 

But  whatever  Mr.  Mainwaring  did  or  said,  what- 
ever her  mother,  it  was  Peter  whom,  in  this  rising 
tide  of  flame  and  self-surrender,  Silvia  watched,  no 
longer  looking  for  those  signs  of  tenderness  and  af- 
fection which  (owlish)  she  had  missed,  but  in  the 
rapturous  contemplation  of  them.  Often  she  had 
seen  him  charming  to  her  mother  and  to  his  own 
father;  but  always,  so  she  had  thought,  she  could 
detect  in  him  politeness  and  amenity,  the  controlling 
hand  of  breeding,  the  practice  of  pleasant  behaviour. 
But  this  evening  there  had  been  no  "behaviour" 
about  him  at  all,  he  had  been  radiant  with  them 
both,  divinely  natural.  .  .  .  He  had  sat  next  Mrs. 
Wardour  on  the  sofa,  as  the  piquet  was  in  progress, 
and  entertained  her  with  ludicrous  but  hopelessly 
recognizable  caricatures  of  her  and  his  father  over 
their  cards;  he  had  held  a  skein  of  her  wool,  he  had 
mixed  her  hot  water  and  lemon  juice  for  her.  All 
these  things  he  had  often  done  before,  and  they 
were  all  trivial  enough.  .  .  .  He  was  the  same  with 
his  father,  looking  over  his  hand  when  so  bidden, 
dutifully  observing  exactly  how  to  play  that  puz- 
zling game;  eager  to  anticipate  his  wants,  chaffing 
him  sometimes,  behaving  to  him — this  again  was  the 
wrong  word — being  to  him,  rather,  all  that  his  own 
sonship  implied,  fulfilling  in  every  word  and  gesture 
the  welcome  which  he  had  given  to  the  suggestion 
of  his  remaining  with  them  till  they  went  to  Lon- 
don. And  all  that  was  ''the  world's  side"  which  any- 
one might  see,  and  behind  it  in  "lights  and  darks 
undreamed  of"  was  that  other  aspect  and  reality  of 
him,  which  was  hers  alone.  .  .  .  She  was  already  in 
bed  when  she  heard  him,  after  his  smoking-room 
chat  with  his  father,  come  into  his  room,  and  pres- 
ently, after  tapping  on  her  door,  he  looked  in,  coat- 


278  PETER 

less  and  shoeless.  She  pretended — in  parody  of  what 
happened  two  nights  before^ — to  be  asleep,  and  be- 
tween her  eyelids,  nearly  closed,  she  saw  a  broad 
smile  overspread  his  face. 

"I  don't  believe  a  single  word  of  it,"  he  remarked. 

All  this — all  it  was  and  all  it  meant — Silvia  now, 
as  she  waited  for  him,  looked  at,  looked  down  on 
even  from  this  crowning  pinnacle,  as  on  upward 
ultimate  slopes.  Even,  as  in  the  cool  scentless  air 
of  the  morning,  the  miracle  of  the  sunshine  on  the 
windless  world  was  more  itself  than  when  its  beams 
had  drawn  that  response  of  fragrance  from  all  living 
things,  so  shone  for  her,  untroubled  with  passion 
and  desire,  the  essence  itself  of  love  in  its  own  crys- 
tal globe.  Not  less  precious,  now  that  it  was  con- 
veyed to  her  in  no  material  manifestation,  would  be 
the  bodily  presence  of  him  through  whom  that  es- 
sence was  conveyed  to  her,  who  embodied  love  to 
her  mortal  sense,  but  for  ever  far  more  precious  was 
it  now  that  she,  in  this  pause  of  content  that  crowned 
passion  with  a  royal  diadem,  could  for  the  moment 
see  that  in  loving  him  she  loved  not  him  alone,  but 
I.ove  itself  that  "moved  the  sun  and  the  other  stars," 
and  being  all,  gave  all.  .  .  . 

The  duration  of  the  moment  in  which  Silvia 
reached  that  point,  not  theoretically,  but  as  a  felt 
and  experienced  reality,  was  infinitesimal,  just  as  in 
significance  it  was  infinite.  ...  At  the  sound  of 
Peter's  step  on  the  bare  boards  of  the  dining-room 
just  within,  the  atmosphere  of  the  summit  where  she 
stood  grew  laden  and  fragrant  with  the  scents  of  the 
world.  She  did  not  come  do^n  from  it:  it  did  not 
rise  up  above  her.  She  was  there  still,  but  she  was 
there  in  body  as  well  as  in  spirit,  the  fragrance  of 


PETER  279 

material  sweetness  was  near  her,  even  as  when  now 
she  stepped  back  into  the  dining-room,  a  waft  of 
rose-scent  from  the  sun-warmed  wall  smothered  her 
nostrils. 

Peter  was  poking  about  among  dishes  on  the  side 
table,  and  turning  round  at  her  entry,  gave  her  a 
grunt,  neither  more  nor  less,  in  answer  to  her  saluta- 
tion. He  had  said  before  now  that  to  be  in  good 
spirits  at  breakfast-tune  was  a  symptom  that  could 
not  be  taken  too  seriously.  By  that  test  there  was 
nothing  wrong  with  him  this  morning. 

He  sat  down  with  an  ill-used  sigh. 

"I've  got  a  headache,"  he  remarked. 

"Oh,  I'm  sorry,"  said  she.    "Where?" 

"In  my  left  ankle,  of  course,"  said  he. 

Silvia,  passing  behind  him,  just  tweaked  the  short 
hair  at  the  back  of  his  neck. 

"Oh,  don't  finger  me,"  said  Peter  angrily. 

He  gave  her  so  quick  a  glance  that  she  could 
scarcely  tell  whether  he  had  actually  looked  at  her 
or  not,  and  went  on  without  pause  and  without 
hurry,  clinking  out  his  worda  like  newly-minted 
coins,  separate  and  crisply  cut  and  hot. 

"Just  let  me  alone  sometimes,"  he  said.  "You 
know  how  I  hate  dabbing  and  pressing  and  grasp- 
ing.   You're  the  lunit,  you  know." 

He  had  got  her  stiff  and  staring,  and  still  with- 
out pause  and  in  precisely  the  same  voice  he 
went  on : 

"Don't  let  me  have  to  speak  to  you  Hke  that 
again,"  he  said.  "And  don't  be  so  owlish,  but  con- 
fess that  you've  fallen  into  that  trap." 

Still  she  stood  staring,  and  he  took  one  step 
towards  her  and  flung  his  arms  close  round  her 


280  PETER 

neck,  pressing  her  face  to  his,  and  then,  more  di- 
rectly, finding  and  claiming  her  mouth. 

"You  utterly  divine  girl,"  he  said.  "I  never 
dreamed  I  should  take  you  in.  I  did.  Kiss  me 
three  times  to  signify  'Yes,'  and  three  times  more 
to  signify  that  you  are  a  darling,  and  once  more  to — 
well,  once  more." 

"Peter,  I  thought  you  were  cross  with  me,"  said 
she,  when  she  could  say  anything. 

"How  perfectly  splendid!  That  joke  did  come 
off,  didn't  it?" 

She  could  smile  again. 

"You  brute!"  she  said.  "But  never  take  me  in 
over  that  again,  darling.    Anything  else;  not  that." 

Once  more  before  his  motor  came  round  they 
strolled  on  the  terrace  outside.  It  was  thick  now 
with  the  web  of  scents,  for  the  sun's  weaving  was 
busy.  The  late  roses  gave  their  fragrance,  and  the 
verbena  and  the  mignonette,  but  these  were  but 
strung  like  beads  on  to  the  smell  of  the  damp,  fruit- 
ful earth.  By  now  Silvia  could  laugh  at  herself 
about  that  fierce  phantom  moment,  for  never  had 
Peter  seemed  more  utterly  hers.  Usually  in  these 
early  morning  half-hours  he  was  rather  silent,  rather 
morose;  to-day,  penitent  perhaps,  or,  at  any  rate, 
consolatory  for  the  fright — it  was  no  less — that  he 
had  unwittingly  given  her,  there  was  something  of 
the  bath-intoxication  about  him. 

"If  you  were  in  any  sense  a  devoted  wife,"  he 
said,  "you  would  drive  up  with  me,  deposit  me  at 
the  P.O.,  and  then  wait  three  hours  for  me  in  the 
motor  till  lunch  time.  I  could  give  you  an  hour 
then,  after  which  you  would  wait  four  hours  more 
and  drive  back  with  me.    Therefore  shall  a  woman 


PETER  281 

leave  her  father  and  her  mother  and  cleave  to  her 
husband." 

''Yes,  of  course  I'll  come,"  said  she,  "if  you  want 
me  to.    You  must  just  say  you  really  want  me." 

He  took  hold  of  her  elbows  from  behind  and  ran 
her  along  the  terrace. 

"Motor-bike,"  he  observed.  "I'm  pushing  you  till 
you  get  your  sense  of  humour  working  on  its  own 
account." 

"It's  working — I  swear  it's  working,"  shrieked  Sil- 
via.   "Don't  be  such  a  bully." 

A  seat  on  the  balustrade  of  the  terrace  seemed 
indicated  after  this  violent  exercise. 

"There's  another  thing,"  said  Peter.  "My  mental 
power  of  association  of  ideas  is  decaying,  which 
is  a  sign  of  softening  of  the  brain.  Aren't  you 
sorry?" 

"Is  that  the  brain  in  your  head?"  asked  she. 

"No;  in  the  same  place  that  ached  when  I  had 
a  headache.  Left  ankle.  Don't  interrupt.  But 
there's  something  in  this  house  front,  and  I  believe 
it's  the  cornice,  or  whatever  they  call  it,  which  runs 
all  along  there  underneath  the  windows  on  the  first 
floor,  which — that's  the  cornice — reminds  me  of  some 
other  house." 

Peter  pointed  to  the  broad  frieze-like  band  which 
projected  some  foot  or  so  from  the  wall  of  the  house. 
It  was  of  Portland  stone,  amazingly  carved  with 
masks  at  intervals,  and  ran,  as  he  had  said,  just 
below  the  first  floor  wmdows  from  end  to  end  of 
the  fagade.  Then  he  gave  a  yodel  which,  consciously 
or  not,  was  a  hoarse  and  surprising  parody  of  his 
father's  favourite  method  of  indicating  a  general 
sumptuousnes  of  sensation. 

"That's  done  it,"  he  said.    "Just  speaking  of  it 


282  PETER 

has  reminded  me  what  it  was.  It's  not  so  awfully 
like  really,  but  that's  what  I  meant.  And  there's 
the  motor,  bother  and  blight  it,  confound  and 
curse  it." 

"And  what  is  the  house  it  reminds  you  of?"  she 
asked. 

"The  flat  belonging  to  Nellie's  mother.  Just  be- 
low the  windows  there  ran  a  band  like  that.  I  no- 
ticed it  one  day  last  summer.  She  had  said  some- 
thing about  it,  but  at  that  point  there's  softening 
of  the  brain  again.  All  I  said  about  the  motor  holds, 
though." 

"Send  it  away.  Walk  up  to  town  instead,"  sug- 
gested Silvia. 

"Likely  with  that  headache  in  my  ankle.  But 
I  would  so  much  sooner  sit  here  with  you  than  do 
either." 

Silvia  waved  to  him  as  he  drove  off,  and  waiting, 
waved  again  as  he  crossed  the  bridge  over  the  lake. 
The  air  was  thick  with  earthly  fragrances  now,  and 
her  mind  with  fragrant  memories,  and  among  them 
there  was  some  new  s<5ent,  not  quite  strange  to  her, 
but  one  from  which  she  had  always,  whenever  it 
presented  itself,  turned  her  head.  Now  it  insisted 
on  being  analyzed,  on  being  recognized. 

When,  half  an  hour  ago,  she  had  just  tweaked 
his  hair  as  she  passed  him,  his  remonstrance,  to  her 
ears,  had  been  wholly  instinctive  and  sincere;  he 
objected  to  being  "fingered."  He  had  piled  that  up, 
so  she  seemed  to  see,  making  of  it  a  joke  against 
her,  until  the  joke  grew  preposterous.  Then,  ever 
so  convincingly,  he  had  smothered  her  with  kisses. 
Yesterday  evening,  too,  how  convincing  had  been, 
on  some  other  plane,  his  "dearness" — that  word  must 


PETER  283 

serve — with  her  mother  and  IMr.  Mainwaring.  On 
one  side  were  bright  tokens  of  affection,  and  to  her 
of  80  much  more  than  affection;  on  the  other  that 
one  little  hot  coin  that  clinked  with  a  true  ring 
before,  with  admirable  mimicry  of  himself,  he  had 
showered  out  a  whole  flood  of  such. 

"VVTiich  was  the  more  real?    And  where,  in  these 
mists,  was  that  austere  and  shining  summit? 


CHAPTER  XIII 

Just  before  Christmas,  after  three  weeks  in  Lon- 
don, Silvia  was  driving  down  alone  to  Howes,  in 
preparation  for  the  party  which  was  to  arrive  next 
day.  Peter  would  come  then:  he  had  got  a  devas- 
tating cold,  and  it  was  far  wiser,  in  this  grim  incle- 
mency of  weather,  that  he  should  not  come  down 
with  her  to-day,  only  to  come  up  for  his  work  again 
next  morning.  It  was  much  more  sensible — Silvia 
had  suggested  it — that  he  should  nurse  his  cold  that 
evening,  and,  well  wrapped  up,  make  a  smgle  instead 
of  a  double  journey  to-morrow.  It  was  quite  sub- 
sidiary to  that  piece  of  good  sense  that  she  did  not 
want,  just  for  this  evening,  to  be  alone  with  him; 
even  if  his  cold  had  not  supplied  an  excellent  argu- 
ment in  favour  of  this  plan,  she  would  have  sug- 
gested her  own  solitary  departure. 

Wilton,  the  correct  virginal  Wilton,  sat  opposite 
her  on  the  front  seat.  Wilton  had,  at  the  start, 
deposited  herself  next  the  chauffeur,  but  Silvia  had 
made  her  come  inside.  But  there  was  little  use,  so 
thought  Wilton,  in  coming  inside,  if  her  mistress  still 
kept  both  windows  open. 

The  sleet  had  turned  to  uncompromising  snow, 
and  Silvia  seemed  to  notice  it  no  more  than  if  she 
were  a  Polar  bear.  Eventually,  as  the  car  flowed 
up  the  long  hill  through  Putney,  Wilton  had  been 
able  to  stand  the  draught  no  longer. 

"You'll  be  catching  a  worse  cold  than  Mr.  Main- 
waring's,   ma'am,"   she  said,   "if  you   sit  in   that 

284 


PETER  285 

draught."  .  .  .  That  made  it  more  comfortable.  Sil- 
via roused  herself  for  a  moment. 

"His  man  doesn't  take  such  care  of  him  as  you 
do  of  me,  Wilton,"  she  said. 

"And  so  much  pneumonia  about,  ma'am,"  ob- 
served Wilton  encouragingly. 

Silvia  began  to  think  consecutively,  starting  not 
from  far  back,  but  from  the  immediate  past.  Nellie 
had  lunched  with  her  alone,  just  before  she  started, 
for  Mrs.  Wardour  had  been  out,  and  Nellie  had 
hailed  this  tete-a-tete  as  the  most  delightful  thing 
that  could  have  happened.  Nellie  had  been  at  War- 
dour  House,  too,  the  night  before  for  a  concert ;  dur- 
ing this  month  of  December,  hardly  yet  three  weeks 
old,  she  had  been  there  a  dozen  times,  for  Mrs.  War- 
dour,  resuming  with  extraordinary  vigour  after  four 
months  in  the  country,  her  social  activities,  had, 
without  the  aid  of  any  godmother,  turned  Decem- 
ber into  June. 

"You  know  the  real  name  of  this  delicious  house, 
darling,"  Nellie  had  said.  "Everyone  calls  it  the 
New  Jerusalem,  because  its  gates  are  never  shut  day 
or  night.  Your  mother  brings  light  into  the  darkest 
homes  of  the  upper  classes.  There's  such  dreadful 
discontent  among  them:  if  it  wasn't  for  people — 
angels — like  your  mother,  they  would  all  go  and  live 
in  converted  garages  or  in  country  cottages,  and  pre- 
tend to  be  the  proletariat.  It's  being  amused  and 
entertained  that  keeps  the  upper  class  together; 
otherwise  they  would  be  the  leaders  of  Bolshevism. 
The  Order  of  the  British  Empire  now!  Why  isn't 
she  the  only  Dame  in  it?  The  stability  of  the  upper 
class  depends  on  her,  and  the  King  depends  on  the 
upper  class,  and  the  Empire,  in  fact,  if  you  see  what 


286  PETER 

I  mean.  I'm  not  quite  sure  that  I  do,  but  I  do  mean 
something.  We  should  all  have  groaned  and  grum- 
bled if  your  mother  hadn't  set  such  a  brilliant 
example." 

With  Nellie's  brilliant  presence  and  charm  to  help 
out  this  engaging  nonsense,  it  was  a  cheerful  scintil- 
lation. Last  June,  so  Silvia  told  herself,  she  would 
vastly  have  enjoyed  such  a  month  as  she  had  just 
spent,  and  Nellie's  resume  of  it  made  her  wonder 
whether  she — only  she — ^had  been  dull  and  unappre- 
ciative.  .  .  . 

The  snow  was  driven  against  the  glass  which  Wil- 
ton had  put  up:  she  could  hear  it  softly  tap  at  the 
window.  .  .  . 

"And  Peter!"  Nellie  had  said.  "What  have  you 
done  to  him,  darling,  or  rather  what  haven't  you 
done  to  him?  Everybody — I  think  I  told  you  so 
once — used  to  be  devoted  to  Peter:  we  used  all  to 
be  in  love  with  him,  for  he  was  so  priceless,  so  mar- 
vellous, in  not  caring  one  atom  for  anybody.  How 
long  did  it  take  you,  do  tell  me,  to  discover  his  heart? 
Did  you  mine  for  it,  and  dredge  for  it,  and  blow  up 
all  the  rocks  round  it?  Or  did  you  get  an  aeroplane 
and  fly  up  to  it.  Perhaps,  after  all,  it  was  in  the 
sky — so  tremendously  remote  that  nobody  ever 
thought  of  looking  for  it  there.  You  and  Peter,  up 
in  the  blue  like  the  queen  bee  and  her  lover !  How 
wildly  romantic!  Or  were  you  there,  and  did  he  fly 
up  to  you?  You  met  in  the  blue,  anyhow,  and  left 
us  all  staring  up  after  you  till  our  eyes  watered  with 
the  glare." 

Silvia,  as  the  car  hooted  its  way  through  King- 
ston, did  not  concern  herself  to  recall  with  what 
small  accompaniment  she  had  sustained  those  arpeg- 
gios.   She  must  have  said  something,  for  Nellie  had 


PETER  287 

gone  on  talking,  talking.  .  .  .  Silvia  had  blinked  be- 
fore that  brilliant  vitality,  which  so  decorated  all 
that  lay  under  its  beams;  but  for  the  first  time,  when 
she  spoke  like  that  about  herself  and  Peter,  the  light 
hurt  her.  It  dazzled  rather  than  illuminated,  and 
when  it  fell  on  certain  dark  places  it  did  not  illumin- 
ate them,  it  only  showed  up  their  blackness.  She, 
with  Nellie's  light,  Nellie's  impressions,  to  help  her, 
peered  into  them.  Such  glimpses  as  she  caught  be- 
tween the  dazzle  and  the  darkness  made  her  turn 
away  with  protest  agamst  this  bull's-eye  that  now 
seemed  to  intrude  on  privacy.  What,  after  all,  had 
her  relations  with  Peter  to  do  with  Nellie? 

The  streets  were  slippery  with  the  newly-fallen 
snow,  and  at  some  corner,  while  they  were  still  pass- 
ing through  houses,  there  was  a  furious  hooting  of 
the  horn  outside,  which  to  Silvia  at  that  moment 
was  not  so  much  a  warning  of  danger  aliead  on  the 
road,  as  of  danger  lying  somewhere  deep  within  her- 
self. They  came  to  a  dead  stop,  which  made  Wilton 
scream  faintly  and  clutch  the  jewel-case,  and  for  a 
yard  or  two  they  slid  backwards.  All  that,  too, 
seemed  instantly  translated  in  her  mind  into  interior 
action,  and,  keeping  pace  with  it,  she  slid  a  little  far- 
ther back  in  her  journey  of  thought. 

She  brought  out  from  the  locked  cupboard  of 
her  very  soul,  where  she  had  turned  the  key  on  it, 
one  particular  moment.  It  was  yesterday  that  she 
had  put  it  there.  She  was  in  a  room  of  a  house  in 
Welbeck  Street,  and  at  the  end  of  the  consultation 
the  great  man,  jovial  and  kindly,  had  got  up  from 
his  chair,  and  smoothed  the  pillow  of  a  sofa  on  which 
she  had  lain  just  before. 

"Be  quite  active,"  Dr.  Symes  summed  up,  "with- 
out overtiring  j^ourself.    Appetite  good?    That's  all 


288  PETER 

nght.  Just  go  on  with  your  ordinary  life.  What? 
No:  no  doubt  of  any  kind.  Your  husband  well?  A 
cold?    Everyone's  got  a  cold." 

Silvia  paused  over  that  while  a  wheel  of  the  car 
slipped  or  skidded.  Soon  it  hit  the  ground  again. 
But  in  that  pause  she  faced  the  fact  that  she  had 
not  told  Peter.  She  meant  to  last  night,  but — 
but  .  .  .  He  had  bewailed  his  cold :  he  had  accepted 
her  proposal  that  he  should  stop  in  London  to-night. 
He  had  waved  his  hand  at  her  and  left  her,  not 
kissing  her  for  fear  of  giving  her  his  cold.  But  that 
was  not  the  reason — it  was  only  the  excuse — for  not 
telling  him.  She  had  welcomed  it,  at  the  time,  as  an 
adequate  excuse ;  but  if  she  had  not  found  any  such, 
she  would  have  done  without  it. 

For  a  second  or  two  her  thought  paused,  merely 
contemplating  this  fact  as  if  looking  at  some  pic- 
ture. It  seemed  quite  incredible  that  she  had  not 
gone  straight  to  him  with  her  news,  blurted  it,  whis- 
pered it,  kissed  him  with  it.  Yet  if  he  had  been  sit- 
ting here  now  instead  of  Wilton,  in  this  privacy  of 
snow  and  twilight-travel,  she  knew  that  she  would 
again  be  struggling,  and  in  vain,  to  tell  him. 

From  that  point  she  swept  back  to  one  morning 
in  October.  It  was  then  that  some  seed  of  knowl- 
edge which  had  previously  lain  dormant  in  her  soul 
began  to  sprout.  For  two  months  now  she  had  been 
conscious  of  its  growth,  and  for  two  months  she  had 
steadily  refused  to  acknowledge  it.  Her  relations 
with  him  had  been  of  the  most  normal  and  friendly, 
but  the  fact,  as  she  saw  now,  of  his  content  and 
tranquillity  was  sunshine  and  rain  to  the  growth  of 
it.  Then,  at  the  news  Dr.  Symes  had  given  her,  it 
burst  into  bitter  blossom,  and  she  could  ignore  it  no 
longer. 


PETER  289 

Peter  had  never  loved  her:  he  had  never,  in  find- 
ing her,  lost  himself.  Mentally  and  sympathetically 
she  knew  that  he  liked  her — liked  her,  she  was  pre- 
pared to  say,  immensely;  physically  she  attracted 
and  satisfied  him.  To  think  that  he  had  married 
her  "for"  her  money  would  be  an  exaggerated  and 
hysterical  estimate ;  her  wealth  had  not  been  a  coun- 
terweight that  overcame  some  opposing  disadvant- 
age, but  it  was,  so  she  now  believed,  a  determining 
factor.    Without  it  he  would  not  have  sought  her. 

It  seemed  odd  to  herself  how  little  that  mattered. 
Her  wealth  was  an  advantage — so,  too,  was  her 
beauty;  and  even  if  he  had  married  her  "for"  her 
wealth,  that  would  have  semed  to  her  no  worse  than 
if  he  had  married  her  "for"  her  beauty,  or  "for" 
(had  she  been  witty)  her  wit,  or  "for"  any  quality 
whatsoever  of  mind  or  body.  All  these  were  ad- 
vantages, pleasant  circumstances;  but  all  of  them, 
singly  or  together,  compared  with  love,  were  no  more 
than  the  bright  shells  on  the  seashore  compared  with 
the  sea. 

It  was  just  here  that  she  blamed  him  with  a  bit- 
terness that  appalled  her;  it  was  this  that  had  made 
it  possible  for  her  to  accept  any  excuse  (or  if  neces- 
sary to  have  done  without  one)  for  not  telling  him 
what  she  had  learned  yesterday.  He  had  bidden 
her  shut  her  eyes,  and  picking  up  a  shell  had  held 
it  to  her  ear,  and  had  told  her  that  what  she  heard 
there  was  the  sea.  ...  He  had  looked,  he  had 
spoken,  he  had  acted  as  if  he  brought  close  to  her 
that  splendid  shining  vastness.  She  had  trusted 
him,  and  had  listened  with  all  the  rapture  of  love  to 
that  murmuring.  Therein  he  had  cheated  her, 
passed  ofi"  on  her  a  "fake"  which,  had  she  not  been 


290  PETER 

blinded  by  his  hand  over  her  eyes,  he  knew  she  must 
have  recognised  as  such. 

There  was  just  one  excuse  for  him;  she  hesitated 
to  adopt  it,  because  while  it  excused  him,  it  far  more 
terribly  accused  him.  It  was  that  he  did  not  know 
what  love  meant.  From  the  very  first,  from  the  day 
when  he  had  asked  her  to  marry  him,  he  had  not 
known.  She  had  told  him  that  all  she  wanted  in  the 
world  was  to  be  allowed  to  love  him,  and  he  had 
never  seen  that  her  surrender  presupposed  his  own. 
He  could  not  burn  in  her  love  without  being  alight 
himself.    There  was  the  root  of  it  all,  his  ignorance. 

At  that,  compassion  deep  as  love  itself  inundated 
her  bitterness,  not  diluting  it,  but  from  its  very 
nature  neutralizing  it.  Sorrow  was  there,  but  ''with- 
out sorrow"  (who  had  said  that?)  "none  liveth  in 
love."  Not  as  by  one  drop  out  of  the  whole  ocean 
was  her  love  for  him  diminished ;  but,  while  he  did 
not  understand,  he  ploughed  his  way  in  drought  and 
desert:  he  could  not  reach  her. 

It  was  through  his  constant  affection  for  her  and 
his  gentleness,  rather  than  through  any  failure  in 
these,  that  the  realization  of  this  had  come  to  her. 
She  did  not  believe  that  she  wearied  him ;  she  knew 
that  she  attracted  him  physically,  that  he  was  faith- 
ful to  her  not  on  principle,  but  by  inclination,  and 
yet  all  this  was  nothing.  He  had  not  begun  (say  for 
a,  minute  or  two)  by  loving  her,  and  then  dropped 
into  mere  affection,  mere  desire:  simply  he  had  never 
loved  her  at  all  as  she  understood  loving.  He  did 
not  love  anybody  else,  and  Silvia,  so  far  from  being 
consoled  by  that  thought,  found  herself  passionately 
wishing  that  he  did.  He  might  love  Nellie,  or  that 
fool  of  a  woman  who  screamed;  for  then,  at  any  rate, 
he  would  know  what  love  meant,  and  they  would 


PETER  291 

have  common  ground  to  meet  on,  though  that  very- 
ground  parted  them.  That  might  ruin  her  own  life, 
which  ah-eady  she  had  given  into  his  cool,  careful 
hands ;  and  if  only,  by  smashing  it  to  atoms,  he  could 
find  his  soul's  salvation ! 

There  were  problems  ahead,  and  how  they  should 
be  solved  she  did  not  know :  she  only  knew  what  the 
upshot  must  be.  Inconceivably  dear  as  the  mere 
touch  of  his  hand  was  to  her,  she  knew  that  never 
again,  unless  he  learned  what  love  was,  or  she  forgot 
it,  could  hand  clasp  hand  and  mouth  meet  mouth. 
Not  again  could  she  give  him  those  symbols  of  the 
infinite  as  the  playthings  for  enjoyment.  All  that 
she  had  or  was,  was  his  except  just  that;  unless  he 
loved  her,  the  banners  of  her  love  must  remain  un- 
furled. Somehow  she  must  let  him  know  that,  just 
as,  somehow  and  soon,  she  must  let  him  know  about 
what  she  learned  yesterday. 

As  the  car  turned  in  through  the  park  gates  the 
snow  beat  in  from  the  other  window.  It  fell  un- 
heeded on  her  face  and  hands,  till  Wilton,  encour- 
aged to  take  care  of  her,  drew  up  the  sash. 

Peter's  head  on  her  shoulder,  his  breath  coming 
soft  and  slow  through  his  mouth.  .  .  .  Peter's  eyes 
close  to  hers,  so  that  if  he  winked  his  eyelashes 
brushed  her  cheek.  .  .  .  Peter's  arm  lying  languid 
and  relaxed  across  her  bosom.  .  ,  .  She  would  give 
her  body  to  be  burned  for  him,  but  not  with  such 
burning  as  this.  Anyone,  not  she  alone,  could  sup- 
ply such  need  as  his;  none  could  supply  hers  but  he, 
and  he  only  if  he  loved  her.  Loving  him  as  she 
did,  she  could  not  (so  the  leaping  firelight  in  her 
bedroom  that  night  illuminated  it  for  her),  she  could 
not  shut  out  her  ideal  in  some  burning  chamber  of  its 


292  PETER 

own,  and  take  the  rest  of  her,  in  ordinary  human 
manner,  to  him,  nor  could  she  take  from  him,  even 
though  it  was  the  highest  he  could  give,  anything 
that  made  its  approach  on  some  other  plane.  He 
must  want  her  as  she  wanted  him,  surrendered  and 
lost,  and  found  again  in  a  new  completeness,  before 
they  could  come  together  as  lovers.  She  conjectured 
that  she  was  singular,  exceptional  in  this:  most  men, 
most  women  gave  what  they  could  and  got  what 
they  could.  But  there  was  no  compromise  possible 
for  her  that  could  produce  this  easily  negotiable 
felicity.  She  could  not,  and  if  she  could  she  would 
not,  have  accepted  that  in  exchange  for  this  drawn 
sword  that  lay  between  Peter  and  her.  She  had  to 
tell  him  that.  .  .  .  She  had  to  tell  him  also  that  the 
fruit  of  love  on  the  one  side,  of  affection  on  the 
other,  was  ripening.  She  must  wait  her  occasion  for 
that;  some  moment  must  be  seized  upon  when  he 
was  most  himself,  most  nearly,  that  is  to  say,  what 
she  had  once  thought  him. 

She  had  nothing  of  her  own;  all  was  his.  That 
was  her  one  inestimable  possession,  that  she  had 
given  him  all.  Whatever  happened,  her  utter  penury 
was  the  one  thmg  she  must  cling  to. 

Peter  had  rung  up  Dr.  Symes  before  he  left  the 
Foreign  Ofl5ce  that  evening,  asking  for  five  minutes 
of  his  time  at  any  hour  of  morning  or  afternoon 
next  day.  Perhaps  it  was  rather  fussy  to  consult 
a  physician  over  a  cold,  but  really  there  never  had 
been  such  a  cold.  Dr.  Symes  gave  you  a  cabalistic 
slip  of  paper  which,  being  duly  interpreted,  proved 
to  be  some  marvellous  tonic  stuff,  or,  when  he  had 
felt  a  pulse,  and  looked  at  a  tongue,  and  tapped  you 
on  a  stomach  or  made  your  knee  jump  in  a  curious 


PETER  293 

manner,  he  even  more  probably  told  you  that  you 
had  the  constitution  of  an  armadillo,  and  roared 
you  out  of  his  room  for  wasting  his  time.  With 
a  week  of  uncles  and  aunts  ahead,  even  though  Nel- 
lie was  to  partake  in  the  secret  joys  of  them,  Peter 
felt  he  would  like  some  robust  reassurance  of  that 
sort.  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  since  there  never  was 
such  a  cold 

These  speculations,  as  he  drove  to  Welbeck  Street 
next  morning,  were  cut  short  by  his  arrival  and  his 
internment  in  a  waiting-room.  There  were  several 
persons  with  sad  faces  there,  reading  illustrated 
papers,  who  looked  up  when  he  entered,  and  there- 
after regarded  him  with  evident  suspicion,  fearing, 
so  Peter  figured  it,  that  he  might,  though  the  latest 
arrival,  be  summoned  before  those  who  had  waited 
longer.  This,  in  fact,  happened,  and  to  the  accom- 
paniment of  sour  looks  he  was  conducted  down  a 
long  passage  into  the  consulting  room.  As  he  went 
he  considered  whether  he  slept  well,  and  whether 
he  had  a  feeling  of  oppression  on  his  chest,  or  a  pain 
in  his  right  side. 

"How-de-do?"  said  Dr.  Sjmies.  "I've  managed  to 
squeeze  you  in  between  two  of  my  patients,  and  I 
can  give  you  just  a  couple  of  minutes,  which  will 
be  quite  enough.  Naturally  you  wanted  to  see  me. 
Well,  there's  nothing  that  should  give  you  a  mo- 
ment's anxiety  at  present.  Don't  think  about  it 
at  all,  and  don't  let  your  wife  think  you're  thinking 
about  it." 

He  turned  backwards  over  the  leaves  of  his  en- 
gagement book. 

"Yes,  as  you  know,  I  saw  her  the  day  before 
yesterday,"  he  said.  "All  healthy  and  normal.  But 
don't  be  fussed  yourself,  and  certainly  spare  her  all 


294  PETER 

fuss.  Of  course,  as  I  told  her,  there's  no  doubt 
at  all.  Let  her — if  she  doesn't  want  to  make  her — 
lead  an  ordinary  active,  normal  life." 

Peter  had  arrived  by  this  time. 

"My  wife?"  he  asked. 

Dr.  Symes  gave  his  great  rollicking  laugh. 

"Yes,  and  your  grandmother,  too,  for  that  mat- 
ter," he  said.  "Don't  let  her  confuse  child-bearing 
with  invalidism.  They're  radically  opposed.  Mind 
you,  the  way  she  spends  these  months  is  important. 
Make  her  go  out,  make  her  keep  busy  and  employed. 
Don't  let  her  get  fancies  into  her  head  that  she  must 
coddle  herself;  there's  no  greater  mistake." 

"I  see,"  said  Peter. 

"Just  use  your  common  sense,"  said  the  doctor. 
"She's  got  to  bear  a  healthy  child,  and  so  she's  got 
to  be  just  as  fit  as  we  can  make  her.  But  take  care 
of  her  too.  What's  her  age  now?  Twenty- two,  I 
suppose.  Well,  regard  her  as  a  woman  of  forty  in 
robust  health.  Make  her  behave  like  an  older 
woman  than  she  is." 

He  rang  a  bell  that  stood  on  his  table. 

"I've  told  you  everything,"  he  said.  "You  look 
fit  enough,  anyway,  though  you've  got  a  bit  of  a 
cold,  haven't  you?  Getting  down  into  the  country 
for  Christmas,  eh?  Change  of  air.  I  wish  I  was 
going  to  get  some." 

He  looked  at  his  table  of  appointments. 

"Ask  Mrs.  Lucas  to  step  this  way,"  he  said  to  the 
maid.    "Good-bye.    Good  luck." 

As  Peter  drove  down  to  Whitehall  he  kept  de- 
tached, as  by  some  dexterous  jerk,  such  part  of  his 
mind  as  dealed  in  emotion,  and  contemplated  with 
the  same  isolation,  as  through  his  closed  car-window 
he  looked  out  on  the  snow-slushy  street,  what  he 


PETER  295 

had  just  learned.  He  wanted  to  assimilate  it  before 
in  any  sense  he  studied  it,  and  to  do  that  he  had 
first  to  wipe  off  his  sheer  surprise,  which  stood  like 
condensed  vapour  on  the  glass  of  this  astounding 
picture  which  had  just  been  presented  to  him.  Again 
and  again  he  had  to  wipe  that  away  before  he  could 
get  any  clear  vision  of  the  fact  itself,  that  Silvia 
knew  that  she  was  with  child  and  had  not  told  him. 
When  he  had  assimilated  that  he  could  perhaps  ar- 
rive at  what  it  meant. 

The  glass  was  clear  now;  he  had  got  it,  and  the 
enigma  of  it  all  stared  him  in  the  face ;  and  the  more 
he  contemplated  it  the  greater  grew  his  bewilder- 
ment as  to  the  meaning  of  it.  How  often,  with  the 
hesitation  of  an  intensity  that  choked  utterance, 
had  she  said  a  word  or  two,  given  him  a  glance,  a 
smile  that  conveyed  better  than  any  stamped  symbol 
of  speech,  what  the  incarnation  of  their  union,  his 
and  hers,  would  be  to  her.  She  had  wondered  how, 
just  how,  she  would  tell  him;  no  one  knew  into 
what  shapes  such  joy  would  crystallize.  And  now  it 
had  come  and  she  had  not  told  him  at  all.  Except 
for  a  trivial  visit  of  his  own,  a  superficial,  unneces- 
sary visit,  he  would  still  be  ignorant.  She  had 
chosen  to  leave  him  in  ignorance  of  what  he  had 
learned  by  accident. 

Nellie  had  often  told  him  that  he  went  walking 
in  the  wet  woods  and  telling  nobody,  and  Silvia, 
in  some  frank  chaffing  discussion,  had  affirmed  that 
she  knew  precisely  what  Nellie  meant.  Certainly, 
thought  Peter  now,  it  was  likely  enough  she  did 
know.  Had  anyone  ever  gone  solitary  so  far  into 
the  wet  woods  as  Silvia?  Had  anyone  ever  so  im- 
measurably told  nobody? 

He  searched  back  through  his  impressions  and 


296  PETER 

memories  of  these  last  two  months  to  see  if  he  could 
discover  any  clue  that  should  lead  him  to  an  inter- 
pretation. As  far  as  he  knew  their  relations  had 
been  uniformly  harmonious,  without  hitch  or  check ; 
there  had  been  so  sign,  no  warning  of  any  sort 
on    her    part    of    an    emotional    change.     As    for 

himself 

Yes,  there  had  been  a  change.  A  change  was 
here,  and  as  it  was  not  in  her  it  must  be  in  him. 
Some  psychical  pigment,  grain  after  grain,  had  been 
dropping,  continually  dropping,  into  his  clean  cup 
of  life,  each  sinking  down  into  it  quietly,  lying  there 
at  the  bottom.  Now  it  seemed  that  the  astonish- 
ment of  this  morning's  discovery  had  violently 
stirred  up  the  whole,  and  the  whole,  so  he  saw,  was 
tinged  with  the  colour  of  that  which  had  been  dis- 
solving in  the  cool  depths.  For  often  and  often,  in- 
creasingly and  ever  more  vividly — here  was  the  drop- 
ping of  those  grains  of  colour — he  had  had  the  image 
of  Silvia  moving  splendidly  on  sunny  heights,  the 
rays  from  which  shone  down  on  him  through  rent 
clouds  and  patches  of  blue.  There  those  grains  had 
settled,  dissolving  perhaps,  but  only  locally  tinging 
minute  remote  areas  of  his  consciousness:  they  had 
not  affected  the  full  contents  of  the  cup,  that  clear, 
cool,  untroubled  self  of  his.  Now  with  this  rough 
shaking  and  stirring,  he  was  suffused  with  the  colour 
of  them.  There,  high  above,  was  Silvia  and  her 
splendour,  felt  now,  not  only  recognized.  He  had 
scrambled  to  his  feet  (was  that  it?),  stung  into 
standing,  finger  on  mouth,  instead  of  remotely  con- 
templating. The  ray  that  had  merely  shone  on  him 
now  shone  in  him,  and  its  light  pierced  the  fogs  of 
his  egoism.  It  was  the  news  itself,  beyond  doubt, 
not  Silvia's  withholding  of  it,  which  gave  him  that 


PETER  297 

enlightenment,  for  to  his  feminine  nature  the  fact  of 
his  impending  fatherhood  struck  more  intimately 
than  it  would  have  done  on  one  more  virile.  It 
evoked,  too,  a  dormant  virility;  his  fatherhood  was 
the  sequel  of  another  relationship.  Clearer  shone 
the  ray;  he  must  climb,  he  must  go  to  her,  he  must 
give.  .  .  . 

Close  on  the  heels  of  that,  and  swiftly  as  reflec- 
tion answers  light,  came  the  remembrance,  lost  for 
that  moment,  that  Silvia  had  withheld  the  knowl- 
edge from  him.  He  could  guess  now  with  a  conjec- 
ture that  verged  on  certainty  what  the  reason  for 
that  was,  and  his  egoism,  his  deep-rooted  vanity, 
returned  and  reinforced,  cried  out  against  the  out- 
rage of  it.  She  from  those  heights,  shining  no  longer, 
but  merely  superior,  looked  down  on  him,  and 
judged  him  unworthy  to  share  that  white  joy  which 
crowned  and  enveloped  her  love.  All  his  pride  stif- 
fened at  the  thought.  He  knew  how  to  walk  in  the 
wet  woods,  suflScient  unto  himself. 

Of  intention  Peter  had  started  from  London  rather 
late,  so  that  he  should  find  the  little  party  ah-eady 
assembled.  His  father,  he  rested  assured,  would 
have  taken  on  himself  the  mantle  of  host,  and  would 
be  wearing  it  far  more  superbly  than  he.  That  he 
found  to  be  the  case:  John  Mainwaring  had  com- 
plete possession  of  the  place  and  all  the  members  of 
what  was,  with  the  exception  of  Nellie  and  her  hus- 
band, the  same  unique  little  family  gathering  which 
had  preceded  Peter's  marriage.  There  was  Aunt 
Eleanor,  stout  and  seal-like,  there  was  a  column  of 
locomotive  floral  decoration  around  Aunt  Joanna, 
there  was  Uncle  Abe,  now  possessor  of  three  mon- 
strous cartoons,  and  Uncle  Henry,  the  possessor  of  a 


298  PETER 

nice  stiff  brandy  and  soda,  for  tea  still  continued  to 
burn  his  heart.  The  cartoons,  in  fact,  and  the  orig- 
inal sketches  were  the  subject,  as  Peter  entered,  of 
debate  between  the  aunts,  to  the  glory  and  honour 
of  their  creator,  who  sat  in  clouds  of  incense.  Mrs. 
Wardour  had  already  got  reconciled  to  the  fact  that 
her  sister  had  been  the  purchaser,  and  bore  it  well. 

"Lovely  they  look,"  said  Aunt  Joanna;  "all  three 
in  a  row,  with  the  rest  to  come  opposite.  Many  a 
half-hour  do  I  spend  at  my  buhl  writing-table  there, 
not  getting  along  at  all  with  my  correspondence  by 
reason  of  looking  at  them.  I'm  sure  I  don't  know 
which  I  like  best." 

"Tea,  Peter?"  asked  Silvia.  She  had  looked  up  at 
his  entry;  now  she  kept  her  eyes  on  her  tray. 

"Yes,  indeed,"  said  Aunt  Eleanor,  "I'm  sure  they 
look  very  fine,  Joanna.  Three  already  finished. 
That's  wonderful.  I  suppose,  Mr.  Mainwaring, 
you'll  be  soon  wanting  to  borrow  the  fourth  of  my 
sketches?" 

"Dear  lady,  I  hesitate.  I  positively  hesitate  to 
ask  you,"  said  he,  "for  I  know  how  you  will  hate 
parting  with  it  even  for  a  week  or  two.  But  with- 
out it  I  can  never  paint  the  larger  version.  The 
inspiration,  the  first  rapture,  is  there;  I  must  study 
it  again." 

Aunt  Eleanor  turned  triumphantly  to  Nellie. 

"You  must  positively  come  to  see  those  sketches, 
Mrs.  Beaumont,"  she  said.  "I  have  all  the  original 
sketches  of  Mr.  Mainwaring's  great  cartoons.  Such 
a  treat!" 

"I'm  sure  they're  charming,"  said  Nellie. 

"Charming  indeed!  Masterpieces!  Such  fire! 
Such  inspiration  as  never  could  be  realized  again." 

"The  three  great  cartoons,"  said  Aunt  Joanna 


PETER  299 

firmly,  while  the  floral  decorations  trembled,  "fill  up 
the  whole  side  of  Sir  Abe's  last  addition  to  our 
house.  A  new  wing,  I  may  call  it,  with  bedrooms 
above." 

"My  sweet  little  sitting-room,"  said  Aunt  Eleanor 
absently.    "All  the  sketches:  the  fire.  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  dear,  and  as  I  was  telling  you,  the  great 
cartoons,"  said  Aunt  Joanna.  "That  was  what  I  was 
telling  you." 

Uncle  Henry  made  a  diversion.  He  liked  peace 
and  plenty.  "Capital  good  brandy  this,"  he  said. 
"You  should  try  my  plan,  Abe.  Have  a  drop  of 
brandy  and  leave  the  tea  alone.  A'most  a  pity  to  put 
soda  into  it." 

(He  had  not  put  much.) 

"Well,  I  don't  say  you're  not  right,  Henry,"  said 
Uncle  Abe.  "But  to  my  mind  what's  given  me  at 
my  dinner,  if  it's  a  drop  of  something  good,  tastes 

all  the  better  if  I  haven't  had There's  some 

old  dry  Petiot  now.  There's  a  wine !  You  must  get 
on  the  right  side  of  Peter  for  that." 

Silvia  handed  Peter  his  cup. 

"And  your  cold's  better?"  she  asked. 

"  'Bout  the  same,  thanks." 

Nellie  more  than  once  had  tried  to  catch  Peter's 
eye  in  order  to  telegraph  to  him  her  rapt  apprecia- 
tion of  the  family.  But  though  Peter  had  met  her 
glance,  he  had  nothing  to  send  in  reply. 

"I  see  the  whole  history  of  the  war  in  my 
sketches,"  proclaimed  Aunt  Eleanor.  "News  from 
headquarters,  I  call  them.  Such  insight!  And  the 
fourth,  dear  Joanna,  the  submarine,  you  know.  Ah, 
no,  you  haven't  seen  that  yet,  but  if  Mr.  Mainwar- 
ing's  cartoon  from  it  comes  up  to  the  sketch,  there'll 
be  something  for  you  to  look  at." 


300  PETER 

"Capital  good  brandy,"  said  Uncle  Henry.  Some- 
thing had  to  be  said. 

Peter  drifted  away  from  the  tea-table  and  estab- 
lished himself  next  Nellie. 

"So  you  got  down  all  right,"  he  said. 

She  let  a  circular  sweeping  glance  pause  infinites- 
imally  four  times,  once  for  each  of  the  aunts  and 
uncles. 

"Yes,  and  what  a  delicious  room,"  she  said.  "You 
hadn't  told  me  half." 

Peter  was  surely  rather  distrait,  she  thought. 
Even  now  he  didn't  catch  the  point  of  her  apprecia- 
tion. 

"It's  good  panelling,"  he  said.  "There's  more  of 
it  in  my  sitting-room  next  door.  We'll  go  there 
after  tea." 

She  held  out  her  cup. 

"Silvia,  darling,  one  inch  more  tea,  please,"  she 
said.    "An  inch.    Pure  greed." 

Silvia  had  an  absent  smile  for  her  but  no  speech, 
and  took  the  cup  from  Peter's  hand  without  looking 
at  him  till  he  had  turned  again  towards  Nellie  with 
the  desired  inch.  She  then  followed  him,  quick  as  a 
lizard,  with  one  glance  of  mute  raised  eyebrows. 
Nellie  got  that,  too;  plucked  it  off,  put  it  in  her 
book.  She  felt  that  she  was  surrounded  by  interests: 
there  were  the  priceless  uncles  and  aunts:  there 
was  also  something  else  going  on,  not  so  farcical, 
not  farcical  at  all,  perhaps,  but  quite  as  interesting. 

"My  dear,  you  have  got  a  cold,"  she  said  to  Peter. 

"I  thought  I  had,"  said  he  wheezily. 

"I  rather  like  having  a  cold,"  she  went  on.  "It's 
an  excuse  for  going  to  a  doctor  and  being  told  that 
one  has  a  brilliant  constitution.  That's  Dr.  Symes's 
cure.    You're  a  Symite,  aren't  you?" 


PETER  301 

Peter  looked  right  and  left,  then  for  a  single 
second  straight  in  front  of  him,  where  Silvia  sat. 

"Rather,"  he  said.    "We're  all  Symites." 

He  paused  a  moment. 

"What  a  pity  I  didn't  go  to  see  him  this  morn- 
ing," he  said  very  deliberately,  "before  I  left  Lon- 
don.   I  might  have  been  well  by  this  time." 

Silvia  did  not  look  up:  she  turned  away  to  Mr. 
Mainwaring,  who  was  on  her  right.  Some  jerked 
movement  of  her  hand  caused  a  teaspoon  to  clatter 
from  its  saucer  and  fall  on  the  floor. 

His  father  gave  a  little  yodel,  adapted  to  the 
drawing-room. 

"Let  me  have  a  word  with  you  some  time,  my 
Peter,"  he  said. 

"Yes.  I'll  come  to  see  you  before  I  dress.  Just 
now  Nellie  and  I  are  going  to  have  a  talk.  Will 
that  do?    Come,  Nellie." 

Peter  drew  two  chairs  up  to  the  fire. 

"That's  nice,"  he  said.  "Priceless,  aren't  they? 
Aunt  Eleanor  is  really  the  most  wonderful.  Can 
you  bear  it  for  three  days,  do  you  think?  They  go 
day  after  Christmas." 

He  lit  a  cigarette  and  threw  it  away  again. 

"Muck!"  he  said.  "By  the  way,  Nellie,  do  stop 
till  we  go  up  to  town." 

"Oh,  my  dear,  I  wish  I  could,"  said  she.  "But 
I  know  Philip's  got  some  county  business  on  the 
twenty-eighth  that  obliges  him  to  go  home.  Some- 
thing ridiculous  about  forbidding  people  to  shoot 
golden  orioles,  of  which  there  aren't  any." 

"Can't  you  let  him  go  alone?"  asked  Peter. 

"Well;  yes,  I  think  I  might.    I'll  get  my  mother 


302  PETER 

to  go  down.  Mother  will  always  go  anywhere  for 
board  and  lodging." 

"Don't  I  remember  that  feeling!"  said  Peter.  "So 
do  stop.    I  heard  Silvia  ask  my  father." 

Nellie  produced  an  admirable  mimicry  of  Aunt 
Eleanor's  views  on  art,  which,  however,  elicited  from 
Peter  only: 

"Very  funny:  yes,  very  like  her,"  and  he  subsided 
into  silence  and  fire-gazing  again. 

"Silvia  seems  rather  silent,"  said  Nellie  at  length. 

Peter  roused  himself. 

"Did  she?"  he  said.  "The  aunts  were  talking  so 
much  that  I  didn't  notice  it.  This  is  the  panelling 
I  spoke  to  you  of,  by  the  way." 

"Charming.  Just  the  same  as  in  the  drawing- 
room,  isn't  it?" 

"The  green  drawing-room,  please,"  said  Peter. 

"I  beg  its  pardon,"  she  said. 

"Granted,  I'm  sure,"  said  he  without  a  smile. 

Nellie  tried  a  handful  of  other  topics,  and  her 
curiosity  to  know  what  was  the  matter  vastly  in- 
creased. She  had  narrowed  down  the  field  of  her 
conjectures  to  a  certainty  that,  whatever  it  was,  it 
concerned  her  host  and  hostess.  Yesterday  at  lunch, 
when  she  had  been  alone  with  Silvia,  she  had  the 
first  impression  of  it,  yet  she  had  seen  Peter  that 
same  evening  in  town  (by  way  of  nursing  his  cold 
he  had  come  to  the  theatre  with  her),  and  he,  in 
spite  of  that  afiliction,  had  been  immensely  cheerful, 
chuckling  with  prophetic  delight  at  the  feast  that 
the  uncles  and  aunts  would  spread  for  them.  And 
he  had  not  seen  Silvia  since  (for  she  had  already  left 
London)  until  his  entry  into  the  green  drawing-room 
half  an  hour  ago. 

She  would  much  have  preferred,  as  on  th  at  even- 


PETER  303 

ing  a  month  ago,  when  they  dined  alone  together 
in  London  and  he  had  been  so  pointedly  reticent 
on  the  subject  of  Silvia,  that  he  should  volunteer 
a  statement,  but  his  reticence  then  seemed  of  totally 
different  quality  from  what  it  was  now.  .  .  .  She 
tried  one  more  topic. 

"Peter,  dear,  isn't  it  lovely?"  she  said.  "I'm  going 
to  have  a  baby." 

Peter  jerked  himself  upright  in  his  chair. 

"Really?"  he  said.  "And  here  are  you  telling  me 
that!" 

He  broke  off. 

"What's  the  matter,  my  dear?"  she  said.  "There's 
something  wrong." 

He  got  up  and  drove  with  his  foot  into  the  log 
fire. 

"It's  really  screamingly  funny  that  you  should  tell 
me  that,"  he  said. 

Nellie  felt  that  they  were  getting  near  it  now. 

"Funny?"  she  asked. 

"Oh,  Lord,  I  said  funny,  didn't  I?"  said  he. 

She  got  up  too,  laying  a  hand  on  his  shoulder. 

"My  dear,  we're  very  old  friends,"  she  said. 

He  turned  round  to  her  with  some  unspoken  bit- 
terness blazing  in  his  eyes. 

"Then  I'll  let  you  have  the  joke,"  he  said.  "You 
tell  me  that,  and  yet  my  wife,  who  knows  the  same 
thing  about  herself,  has  not  told  me." 

He  paused  a  moment. 

"I  found  it  out  by  accident  this  morning,"  he 
said.  "I  went  to  see  Dr.  Symes  about  my  cold — odd 
that  you  should  have  spoken  of  him — and  before  I 
told  him  anything  he  began  telling  me,  and  that 
was  what  he  told  me.  Of  course,  he  assumed  I  knew  ; 
thought  that  I  had  come  to  him  for  some  general 


304  PETER 

directions,  which  he  gave  me.  Silvia  had  been  to 
him  two  days  before.  She  hasn't  said  a  word  to  me. 
Not  a  word." 

Nellie  heard  herself  give  some  ejaculation. 

"Now  you're  fond  of  psychological  problems,"  he 
said.  "Also  you're  a  woman,  and  know  how  women 
feel.  Under  what  circumstances,  feeling  how,  in 
fact,  would  a  woman  do  that?  Interesting  point, 
isn't  it?    It's  beyond  me." 

"No  quarrel?  No  misunderstanding?  Nothing 
of  that  sort?" 

"None.  I've  felt  she  was  watching  me  sometimes. 
I've " 

"Well?    Can  you  describe  that?"  she  asked. 

"I've  only  thought  of  that  this  minute,"  he  said, 
"and  now  I  don't  really  see  any  connection.  But 
when  my  father  knew  my  mother  had  gone,  and  was 
posing  and  posturing  as  a  lost  and  stricken  man, 
Silvia  was  watching  me  to  see,  I  think,  if  I  had  real 
sympathy,  real  pity  for  him.  I  did  feel  then  as  if  I 
was  being  tested.  But  I  made  that  all  right.  I  did 
it  cleverly.  I  gave  the  most  cordial  welcome  to  his 
stopping  on  here — Lord,  what  evenings  they  were! 
— for  endless  weeks,  and  left  him  to  tell  her  about 
it." 

"Are  you  quite  sure  you  made  it  all  right?"  she 
asked. 

"She  told  me  she  had  been  wrong  about  what  she 
had  thought  about  my  feeling  towards  him,"  he 
said.  "But  even  if  she  made  a  reservation,  or  recon- 
sidered it,  what  then?" 

Nellie's  hand  still  rested,  now  with  pressure,  on 
his  shoulder. 

"And  what  if  Silvia  put  herself,  so  to  speak,  in 
your  father's  place?"  she  said.    "What  if  it  occurred 


PETER  305 

to  her  that  you  had  boen  charming  with  her,  and 
clever  with  herf    Mind,  that's  only  a  guess." 

Again  Peter  thrust  the  logs  together. 

"She  trusts  me  too  much/  he  said  at  length.  "She 
loves  me  too  much." 

This  time  Nellie  was  silent. 

"Well?"  said  he  at  length. 

"She  thinks  you've  been  clever  with  her  and 
charming  with  her,"  she  said.  "That's  it.  I  think 
that  she  was  quite  wrong  in  keeping  this  news  from 
you,  but  that's  why.  Silvia  isn't  like  us,  you  must 
remember.  We  may  be  complicated  and  clever  in 
our  way,  but  she's  not  like  that.  There's  something 
tremendous  about  Silvia.  A  simplicity,  a  splen- 
dour." 

"And  just  when  I  was  beginning  to  realize  that, 
to  adore  it,  she  does  this.  I  can't  forgive  it,"  said 
he. 

She  felt  then,  as  perhaps  never  before,  the  charm 
of  his  egoism:  it  really  was  such  a  charming  fellow 
he  was  egoistic  about. 

"My  dear,  it's  just  because  you,  as  you  say,  are 
beginning  to  realize  that  and  to  adore  it,  that  you 
feel  you  can't  forgive  it.  You  would  forgive  it  easily 
enough  if  you  didn't  care.  But  put  yourself  in  her 
place.  Assume,  as  I  feel  sure  we're  right  in  assum- 
ing, that  we  have  got  at  the  reason  for  her  not  tell- 
ing you;  it  is  exactly  what  a  woman  of  that  sim- 
plicity and  splendour  would  do.  With  all  there  is 
of  her,  she  loves  you." 

"A  charming  way  of  showing  it,"  said  Peter. 

"You're  hurt;  you're  smarting,"  she  said.  "Other- 
wise you  wouldn't  say  that." 

"She  has  spoiled  everything,"  exclaimed  Peter. 
"Just  when " 


306  PETER 

All  through  their  talk  Nellie  had  been  conscious  of 
a  dual  stirring,  not  only  in  him — that  was  clear 
enough — but  in  herself.  Not  many  weeks  ago  she 
would  certainly  have  had  her  whole  sympathies 
enlisted  on  his  side.  She  would  have  fanned,  secretly 
and  stealthily  no  doubt,  the  flame  of  his  resentment 
against  Silvia,  and  with  the  same  hidden  action  have 
insinuated  into  his  mind  that  there  was  somebody 
who  was  eager  to  console,  to  help  him  to  forget — one 
who  gave  him  a  welcome.  .  .  .  Even  now  some 
breath  of  woodland  irresponsibility,  the  morality  of 
Dryads  and  Satyrs,  swept  over  her,  with  the  whis- 
pering of  wild  things  and  the  stirrings  in  the  bushes. 
Like  sought  like  there,  deriding  the  consequences  to 
others.  Should  she  twang  that  string,  let  the  wind 
blow  on  that  harp  in  the  trees,  she  knew  well  that 
something  would  answer  it.  He  was  hurt  and  sore; 
there  were  woodland  balms.  .  .  . 

Something  within  her  again  jerked  back  the  finger 
that  hovered  over  the  string,  ready  to  pluck  it,  and 
turned  her  hand  into  a  shield  instead,  that  prevented 
the  wind  from  making  the  harp  vibrate.  Silvia  had 
her  harp,  too,  and  he  had  begun,  ever  so  faintly, 
to  vibrate  in  answer  to  Silvia's  harp  and  not  to 
her's.  ...  In  this  second  impulse  there  was  compas- 
sion for  Silvia,  there  was  motherhood.  She  made  her 
choice. 

''You  can't  say  that  she  spoiled  it,  my  dear,"  she 
said.  'Tou  know  how  she  loved  you  when  you  asked 
her  to  marry  you." 

Peter  had  a  frown  for  this. 

*'I  thought "  he  began. 

"I  know  what  you  thought.  Silvia  very  likely 
told  you  that  she  wanted  just  to  be  allowed " 

"I  never  told  you  that,"  said  he  quickly. 


PETER  307 

"Of  course  you  didn't.  But  wasn't  it  clear  that 
before  you  married,  she  loved  you  as  a  boy  loves, 
with  some  tempestuous  desire  of  possession?" 

"But  she's  got  me,"  said  he.  "It  isn't  as  if  there 
were  anyone  else." 

"I  know  that,  and  she  knows  that  for  certain.  It's 
nothing  of  that^kind  that  revolts  her." 

"Revolts?"  asked  he. 

"Oh,  my  dear,  short  of  that,  wouldn't  she  have 
told  you  what  she  has  known  for  two  days,  and 
suspected  long  before?  But  you  would  be  quite 
wrong  to  think  that  she  loves  you  any  less.  What 
you  don't  see,  especially,  beyond  that,  is  that  Silvia 
has  become  a  perfectly  changed  person.  She  keeps 
her  splendour.  Keeps  it?  Good  heavens!  I  should 
think  she  did.  But  what  she  learned  the  other  day 
quite  changes  her.  She  has  become  a  woman,  and 
she  must  have  not  just  a  man  to  love,  but  a  man  to 
love  her.  You've  hinted  that  she's  on  the  way  to 
get  one.  That's  the  sum  of  the  consolation  I've  got 
for  you." 

Nellie,  having*  determined,  having  chosen,  was 
being  magnificent  just  then,  and  all  the  time  the 
Dryad  within  her  scolded  and  derided  her. 

"You  fool,  you  conventionalist,"  the  Dryad 
shrieked.  "He  might  be  yours;  he's  as  weak  as 
water,  and  vain,  vain!  You  want  him:  wait  a  few 
months  and  see  how  you  want  him!    Idiot!" 

Nellie  heard  all  that  as  plainly  as  she  heard  the 
whistle  of  the  wind  in  the  chimney. 

"It  won't  be  easy,"  she  said.  "You've  got  to  get 
out  of  yourself,  Peter,  a  thing,  by  the  way,  that  I've 
never  succeeded  in  doing.  And  when  you've  got 
out  of  yourself  you've  got  to  convince  her  that  you've 
got  into  herself.    I  wouldn't  bet  on  your  chance." 


308  PETER 

"Have  I  been  a  brute?"  asked  he. 

Nellie  hesitated;  she  had  never  yet  realized  how 
close  to  love  had  been  her  intimacy  with  Peter,  or 
how  far  from  love  her  own  marriage-bond.  And 
now,  when,  bitterly  resenting  what  Silvia  had  done, 
he  turned  to  her.  .  .  . 

Peter,  in  her  silence,  repeated  his  question. 

"A  brute?"  he  asked,  and  now  his  voice  shook. 

She  took  her  hand  briskly  off  his  shoulder.  They 
had  stood  there  like  that,  comrades  and  friends,  for 
ten  minutes  now,  and  her  fingers  had  dwelt  on  his 
shoulder,  the  bone  and  the  muscle  of  it. 

"Not  a  brute  at  all,"  she  said.  "You  couldn't  be 
a  brute,  you  darling.    But  a  liar  and  a  cheat." 

"Ha!"  said  Peter. 

He  walked  round  the  room  after  this,  with  a 
whistle  for  her  and  him,  and  a  kick  for  a  footstool 
that  got  in  his  way. 

"You  don't  help  me,"  he  said.  "What's  to  be 
done?" 

Somehow,  at  his  absence  of  resentment  at  what 
she  had  said,  and  at  his  appeal  to  her  for  help,  the 
old  delightful  level  of  comradeship  smoothed  itself 
out. 

"Tell  her  that  you  know,"  suggested  Nellie.  "Do 
it  nicely." 

"I  couldn't  possibly  do  it  nicely.  Confound  it 
all " 

She  considered  this. 

"If  you  can't  do  it  nicely,  it  will  only  make  it 
worse,"  she  conceded. 

"What  then?" 

"Wait." 

"For  her  to  tell  me?"  demanded  Peter. 

"Yes,  or  for  you  just  to  know.     It  won't  come 


PETER  309 

to  that.  Oh,  you  absurd  people!  Shall  I  tell  her 
that  you  know?" 

Peter  thought  over  this. 

"It's  becoming  comic,"  he  said  presently.  "That's 
the  silliest  thing  you've  said  yet." 

"Perhaps.     But  it  isn't  comic,  my  dear." 

"I  know  it  isn't.  That's  my  ferocious  flippancy. 
Gravediggers." 

"And  it  isn't  comic  for  Silvia,"  she  added. 

The  spasm  of  the  woodland  died  away  again. 

"She  hasn't  told  me,"  said  Peter  hopelessly.  "I 
can't  get  over  that." 

"You've  got  to  get  over  that.  Otherwise  there's 
nothing  ahead.  She's  got  to  get  over  more  than 
that." 

All  the  worst  of  him  returned. 

"You  speak  as  if  I  hadn't  given  her  all  I  had  got," 
he  said. 

"You're  getting  more,  my  dear.  Keep  on  getting 
it,  and  keep  on  giving  it." 

Peter  looked  at  the  clock. 

"Here  endeth  the  first  lesson,"  he  said.  "Not  even 
out  of  the  prophets.  I  must  go  and  see  my  father. 
More  acting.    Necessary,  you  know." 

He  flung  his  arms  out. 

"I  daren't  be  real,"  he  said.  "No  one  knows  what 
an  abomination  I  am." 

Quite  unexpectedly  Nellie  felt  weary  and  done 
for.  She  pulled  herself  together  for  a  final  encour- 
agement. 

"Ah,  what  a  hopeful  sign!"  she  said. 

He  lingered  a  moment. 

"Quarter  to  eight,"  he  said.  "We  dine  at  half- 
past.  Think  of  the  old  quarter-to-eights!  Ritz, 
opera,  Mrs.   Trentham!     Charlie  and   Robby  and 


310  PETER 

Tommy  and  me  and  you,  and  Sophy  and  Ella  and 
any  fool  you  like  to  mention.    Lord  Poole,  now " 

*'No,  that  won't  do,"  said  she.  "He  was  real.  I 
grant  you  the  rest  weren't.  But  he  was  real:  he 
completely  enjoyed  himself — does  still,  bless  him!" 

"Wish  I  did,"  said  Peter.  "I  used  to.  And  I 
don't." 

"You  won't  as  long  as  you  think  about  it." 

There  was  the  woodland  touch  to  finish  with. 

"You're  only  ninety,  are  you?"  she  said.  "Or  is  it 
ninety-one?" 

"Ninety/'  said  Peter,  grinning. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

The  grin  soon  cleared  off.  His  father  rose  from 
the  sofa  on  which  he  had  been  so  elegantly  resting, 
as  Peter  entered,  and  clasped  his  hand,  though  he 
had  seen  him  at  tea  a  couple  of  hours  before. 

"Have  you  heard  from  your  mother?"  he  asked. 
"My  loved  and  lost  one?"  He  smoothed  his  vel- 
veteen coat  as  he  spoke. 

My  loved  and  lost  one!  The  velveteen  coat!  .  .  . 
The  little  demons  swarmed  into  Peter's  soul — the 
demons  of  ridicule  and  cynicism  and  contempt  and 
all  the  host  of  such.  But  rebel  and  ridicule  as  he 
might,  he  knew  that  he  had  been  sham  and  char- 
latan on  an  immeasurably  greater  scale  than  his 
father. 

"I  had  a  report  of  her  a  couple  of  days  ago,"  he 
said.    "Just  a  message  through  her  solicitors." 

Mr.  Mainwaring  put  the  tips  of  his  fingers  in  a 
neat  row  into  his  mouth,  as  if,  in  his  suspense,  to 
gnaw  the  nails  of  them.  But  he  committed  no  such 
feat  of  violence.  He  merely  sucked  them,  and  took 
them  out  again. 

"Tell  me,"  he  said. 

Peter  tried  to  evoke  any  sort  of  kindliness  or 
sympathy  from  his  mind,  and  failed. 

"She  is  quite  well  apparently,"  he  said,  "and 
she " 

"She  asked  after  me?"  suggested  his  father. 

"Yes,  she  asked  after  you.  She  hoped  you  were — 
comfortable,  I  think  she  said." 

311 


312  PETER 

"Comfortable!    My  God!    Comfortable!" 

Peter  waited  till  this  paroxysm  of  irony  was  spent. 

"I  ought  to  have  written  to  her  to-day,"  he  said, 
*'but  I  didn't.  I  shall  write  to-morrow.  What  shall 
I  tell  her  about  you?" 

"What  your  heart  bids  you,"  said  he.  "Tell  her 
about  me,  as  I  am.  Miserable,  homeless,  except  for 
the  charity  of  my  children.  I  count  Silvia  as  a 
child,"  he  explained. 

Peter  felt  absolutely  relentless. 

"So  you  long  for  her  to  come  back  to  you,"  he 
said.    "I  will  tell  her." 

He  regarded  Peter  With  his  chin  in  the  hollow  of 
his  hand. 

"You  don't  understand,  my  dear,  the  depth " 

he  began. 

"Explain  it  to  me,  then,  father,"  said  he. 

"Take  your  own  case,  then.  Supposing  Silvia— 
I  use  your  case  for  the  absurdity  of  it — suppos- 
ing Silvia  left  your  house.  What  would  you  do? 
Would  you  not  give  her  complete  freedom  to  return 
or  not  to  return?  Would  not  your  heart  say  'My 
love  for  her  wants  only  what  she  wants.'  " 

"Then  I  won't  say  that  you  long  for  her  to  come 
back  to  you,"  said  Peter.  "I  only  want  to  know 
your  wishes.  I  will  transmit  them.  But — but  why 
not  do  it  yourself?  You  know  her  solicitors.  Any- 
thing you  send  them  will  be  forwarded  to  her." 

"The  scoundrels!"  cried  Mr.  Mainwaring. 

"Oh,  I  don't  see  that,"  said  Peter.  He  stifled  a 
yawn :  it  was  all  too  stupid. 

"Scoundrels!"  cried  Mr.  Mainwaring.  "Ai^en't 
they " 

He  appeared  unable  to  say  exactly  what  they  were, 
and  Peter  got  up. 


PETER  313 

"I'll  convey  any  message  you  like,  father/'  he  said. 
"I  only  suggest  that  you  might  just  as  well  send  it 
yourself.  There  are  two  things  you  can  do.  You 
can  summon  my  mother  back,  and,  if  you  choose, 
divorce  her  if  she  doesn't  come,  on  the  grounds  of 
desertion.  The  other  is  to  acquiesce  in  her  stopping 
away  as  long  as  she  chooses.  I  don't  see  why  you 
put  a  hypothetical  case  about  Silvia  and  me.  You 
want  her  to  come  back,  or  you  don't." 

This  point  of  view  necessitated  some  more  strid- 
ings  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Mainwaring. 

"My  angel,  your  angel,  your  Silvia,"  he  said,  "has 
asked  me  if  I  would  not  like  to  spend  the  rest  of 
the  winter  on  the  Riviera.  A  little  sun  for  me,  she 
said  only  to-night,  a  little  change,  a  little  chance  of 
the  healing  of  my  wound.  She  offers  me  two  months 
on  the  Riviera.  Should  not  I  be  wrong  if  I  did  not 
accept  her  sweet  charity?" 

"Leave  it  over,  you  mean,  about  my  mother?" 
asked  Peter,  "till  you  get  back.  Get  a  little  sun  first, 
and  that  sort  of  thing.  I  think  that  would  be  a  very 
sensible  arrangement.  That  was  a  charming  idea  of 
Silvia's." 

He  laid  his  hand  on  Peter's  shoulder,  and  his  voice 
broke. 

"Make  Silvia  happier  than  I  have  made  any 
Maria,"  he  said.  "The  love  of  a  good  woman !  My 
God!  What  brutes  we  men  are!  No,  not  brutes: 
heaven  forbid  that  I  should  call  you,  or  indeed,  my- 
self, a  brute.  But  more  tenderriess,  my  Peter,  more 
making  of  allowances.    Experto  crede." 

He  paused  a  moment  in  a  fine  attitude. 

"Abe  Darley!"  he  said.  "Henry  Wardour!  They 
and  their  wives!  Their  pleasant  chaff:  their  gentle 
fun!    Yes,  when  you  begin  to  step  down  from  the 


314.  PETER 

tableland  of  life  you  want  to  find  such  hands  as 
those  in  yours.  A  brilliant  woman,  too,  is  Joanna 
Darley.  How  she  appreciates  the  cartoons.  And 
your  Aunt  Eleanor!  Eleanor,  as  she  suggested  that 
I  should  call  her.  We  are  John  and  Eleanor.  She 
has  commissioned  me  to  do  her  portrait  before  I 
attack  the  fourth,  the  tremendous  cartoon.  Sub- 
marines: you  remember  my  sketch  for  it." 

Peter  went  down  the  corridor  to  his  room  and 
Silvia's  with  the  gravity  that  attaches  to  the  con- 
clusion of  a  comic  interlude.  The  tragic  burden,  all 
the  worse  for  its  temporary  suspension,  must  be 
taken  up  again,  and  the  interlude  had  hardened 
rather  than  softened  him.  He  despised  his  father 
for  being  a  "fake,"  and  that  contempt  stung  him 
also,  as  with  the  back-stroke  of  his  own  lash.  Smart- 
ing from  that,  his  mind  went  back  to  what  Silvia 
had  withheld  from  him,  and  there  was  the  shrewdest 
hurt  of  all.  .  .  . 

His  bath  w^as  ready  for  him,  and  as  he  soaked 
and  sprayed  himself  some  tautness  of  physical 
vigour  pictured  the  usual  sequence  to  his  bath,  the 
dressing-gowned  and  drying  seance  in  the  chair  close 
to  Silvia's  toilet  table.  He  would  sink  his  resent- 
ment; he  would  tap  at  her  door  and  go  in  to  her  with 
a  flood  of  normal  nonsense.  Then,  if  she  told  him 
now,  as  she  must  surely  do,  the  news  she  had  with- 
held, he  would  receive  it  as  news  hitherto  unknown 
to  him. 

He  arrived  at  this  stage  of  resolution,  finished  his 
bath  and  came  out.  And  at  that  moment,  even  as 
his  knuckles  were  raised  to  inquire  at  her  door,  his 
resentment  against  her,  seizing  upon  some  new  pre- 
text of  bitterness,  poured  over  him  again.  His  hand 
dropped  as  he  turned  and  went  into  his  own  room. 


PETER  315 

He  was  late  also — that  served  for  an  excuse — for  at 
tJ-ie  moment  the  sonorous  bell  in  the  turret  above 
Silvia's  room  ma/Je  its  proclamation  to  the  listening 
earth  that  dinner  was  served  at  Howes. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  door  Silvia,  fully  dressed 
and  following  the  familiar  sounds,  was  waiting  for 
him  to  enter.  How  often  had  she  waited  like  that, 
longing  for  him!  She  longed  for  him  now,  though 
dreading  his  coming,  and  so  intertwined  were  these 
two  that  she  could  not  disentangle  the  one  from  the 
other.  She  would  tell  him  just  what  she  had  deter- 
mined that  he  must  know,  she  would  ask  his  pardon 
for  not  having  told  him  of  the  news  before.  She 
had  used  up,  so  it  seemed  to  her,  all  the  emotion  of 
which  she  was  mistress;  what  lay  immediately  in 
front  of  her  covered  like  some  hard  integument  the 
longing  and  dread  with  which  she  waited  for  him, 
though  it  left  her  superficial  perceptions  alert.  The 
clink  of  the  coals  in  the  grate,  the  flapping  of  the 
flame  there,  were  more  vivid  to  her  senses  than  any- 
thing else.  There  was  the  beating  of  rain  on  her 
windows,  for  the  snow  had  ceased,  and  a  wind  from 
the  southwest  was  beginning  to  bluster  outside. 
.  .  .  Then  she  heard  Peter  come  out  of  his  bath- 
room, and  presently  the  door  of  his  bedroom  shut. 
Already  the  bell  sounded  sonorously  above  her:  she 
must  tell  him  then  that  night,  when  he  came  up  to 
bed.  There  was  relief  in  that.  For  an  hour  or  two 
more  the  only  barrier  between  him  and  her  was  in 
her  own  knowledge:  it  was  not  formally  erected.  She 
was  conscious  now  that  her  heart  had  been  beating 
fast  in  the  anticipation  of  his  coming,  and  she  sat 
down  for  a  few  minutes  (Peter  would  be  late  also) 
to  recover  her  poise  before  she  went  downstairs. 
There  was  to  be  a  jollification  that  night  for  tenants 


316  PETER 

and  servants:  a  dance  for  the  elders,  a  Christmas 
tree  for  the  children. 

The  wind  which  just  now  she  had  heard  flinging 
the  rain  against  her  windows  rose  to  a  scream,  and 
Peter,  hurrying  on  with  his  dressing  next  door,  saw 
a  cloud  of  smoke  driven  out  from  his  grate,  followed 
by  another  and  yet  another,  till  in  a  few  minutes 
tlie  room  was  thick  with  its  pungency.  He  remem- 
bered then  that  the  Jackdaw  had  told  him  that  some- 
thing had  gone  wrong  with  the  cowl  of  the  chim- 
ney, and  no  doubt  this  change  of  wind  caused  this 
regurgitation  .  .  .  these  things  always  happened  just 
before  Christmas  or  bank  holidays,  when  the  British 
workman  became  even  more  deliberate  than  usual. 
Opening  the  window  seemed  only  to  make  things 
worse,  and,  heavy  with  his  cold,  he  had  no  intention 
on  this  chill  and  bitter  night  of  sleeping  fireless.  As 
with  choking  throat  and  streaming  eyes  he  redoubled 
the  speed  of  his  dressing,  he  rang  his  bell  and  told 
his  servant  to  transfer  the  necessaries  for  sleep  and 
toilet  to  some  other  room.  The  uncles  and  aunts  oc- 
cupied the  next  suites,  but  farther  along,  beyond  the 
head  of  the  main  stairs,  was  an  unoccupied  bed- 
room and  dressing-room,  and  he  ordered  that  a  fire 
should  be  lit  there,  and  the  change  made  during 
dinner,  so  that  he  would  find  the  room  ready  for  his 
tenancy  that  night.  As  he  came  out  from  that  me- 
phitic  fog  on  to  the  corridor  Silvia  also  emerged  from 
her  room. 

*'My  chimney's  smoking  like  the  devil,"  he  said. 
"I  remember  now  that  the  Jackdaw  told  me  there 
was  something  wrong  with  it.  It's  quite  impossible 
to  sleep  there.    I'm  having  my  room  changed." 

He  finished  buttoning  a  shirt-link  as  he  spoke,  not 


PETER  317 

looking  at  her.    Somehow  this  set  a  key  of  coobiess, 
of  casuahiess. 

"How  tiresome  for  you,"  she  said.  "Where" — she 
stumbled  over  the  question — "where  have  you 
gone?" 

"Oh,  somewhere  down  the  passage,"  said  Peter. 

Just  now,  if  he  had  come  in  to  talk  to  her  after 
his  bath,  she  would  have  told  him  what  he  had  to 
know.  Now  her  resolution  had  a  little  cooled :  it  was 
not  hot  enough  to  enable  her  to  ask  him  to  come 
and  talk  to  her  when  he  came  upstairs  that  night, 
nor  yet  to  ask  him  more  definitely  where  his  room 
was.  Besides,  with  the  entertainment  for  the  ser- 
vants they  would  all  be  very  late,  and  to-morrow 
would  furnish  a  more  convenient  occasion.  Or  if  not 
then,  and  not  spontaneously  on  her  part,  he  would 
come  to  her  some  night,  seeking  her,  and  then  she 
would  tell  him.  ...  In  the  interval  there  was  the 
family  farce  of  jollity  to  be  kept  up :  it  would  only 
add  to  the  difiiculty  of  that  if  from  her  communica- 
tion to  him  something  unconjecturably  critical  arose. 
She  had  no  idea  how  Peter  would  take  it:  there  could 
be  no  mortal  wound,  for  that  implied  that  she  was 
to  him  all  that  she  missed  being.  But  his  pride,  his 
vanity :  how  she  longed  to  kill  it,  and  how  she  hated 
to  hurt  it. 

On  his  side,  as  they  went  down  the  broad  stairs, 
resentment  at  what  he  knew  she  had  withheld  out- 
shouted  all  the  counsel  Nellie  had  given  him,  out- 
shouted,  too,  the  authentic  whisper  of  his  own  heart. 
He  had  but  to  listen  to  that,  to  act  when  action 
came,  and  always  to  think  and  to  feel  and  to  be  with- 
out forethought,  just  blindly  following  its  sugges- 
tions. But  for  that  small  voice  to  be  heard  he  must 
unstopper  his  ears  from  that  cotton-wool  of  vanity 


318  PETER 

which  shut  out  from  his  hearing  all  but  the  com- 
plaints and  self- justifications  that  so  audibly  mut- 
tered to  him.  It  had  been  and  it  was  her  business 
to  tell  him.  ... 

"My  father  says  you  have  treated  him  to  a  month 
or  two  in  the  South,"  he  said.  "That  is  very  good 
of  you:  he  will  enjoy  it." 

There  was  the  ring  as  of  a  duty  discharged  in 
this  that  robbed  it  of  spontaneousness,  and  it  gave 
to  her  its  own  woodenness.  Peter  had  not  meant  it 
like  that:  he  wanted  to  thank  her  for  her  kindness, 
to  let  her  know  that  he  appreciated  it.  But  all  that 
passed  now  had  to  travel  tlirough  the  falsity  of  that 
situation  between  them,  as  through  some  mould 
which  made  it  take  a  shape  not  truly  its  own,  coming 
out  at  the  end  and  distorted. 

"January  and  February  are  delightful  on  the 
Riviera,"  she  said.    "A  change  will  do  him  good." 

To  him  that  seemed  to  double-lock  the  wards  of 
the  gate  that  should  have  stood  open.  They  looked 
at  each  other  through  its  bars:  the  very  attempt  on 
both  sides  to  meet  the  conventional  needs  of  the 
moment — the  friendly  word  or  two  on  the  stairs — 
had  but  served  to  sever  them.  The  femininity  of 
his  nature,  already  resentful  at  what  had  been  with- 
held from  him,  construed  her  reply  into  a  further 
withdrawal  of  herself,  overlooking  the  fact  that  it 
was  his  own  resentment  that  had  led  him  into  con- 
ventionalities of  speech.  His  pride  choked  him:  was 
it  nothing  to  her  that  she  was  ripening  with  his  fath- 
erhood? Had  she  no  inkling  that  not  his  head  only 
but  his  heart  was,  as  in  some  belated  dawn,  begin- 
ning to  glow  with  her  splendour?  The  male  element 
in  him  was  awakening,  like  Adam  from  the  sleep 
which  the  Lord  God  had  laid  on  him,  and  was  begin- 


PETER  319 

ning  to  find,  to  realize  that  what  he  expunged  and 
expelled  from  himself  became  the  living  glory  and 
the  complement  of  him.  All  such  perception  was 
still  clouded  with  the  blanketing  vapours  of  his  own 
resentment  and  egoism,  but  through  the  rifts,  from 
high  above  Silvia  shone.  .  .  . 

His  pride  choked  him.  What  choked  her  was  her 
love,  that  could  not  breathe  but  in  its  own  high 
air. 

Uncle  Henry-,  on  the  occasion  of  his  first  visit  to 
Howes,  just  before  Silvia's  marriage,  had  found  (and 
deplored)  a  certain  "standoffishness,"  so  he  expressed 
it,  in  his  new  nephew.  His  wife  had  not  agreed 
with  him;  she  found  Peter  to  be  'Very  refined." 
But  during  the  three  days  that  followed  now  Uncle 
Henry  quite  scrapped  his  previous  verdict.  There 
could  not  have  been  a  more  seasonable  host:  Peter 
was  full  of  fun,  and  indeed  Aunt  Eleanor  was  almost 
disposed  to  follow  her  husband's  example  and  re- 
consider her  favourable  opinion  of  Peter's  refine- 
ment. It  was  really  naughty  of  him  to  put  up  that 
bit  of  mistletoe  without  warning  her  of  it,  and  Mr. 
Mainwaring's  chaste  salute  had  come  as  a  great  sur- 
prise to  her,  before  she  realized  the  public  tempta- 
tion she  was  making  of  herself  by  standing  so 
squarely  and  indubitably  just  below  it.  But  there 
was  no  harm  in  a  good  old-fashioned  Christmas,  and 
if  Peter  would  insist  on  having  a  bowl  of  wassail  to 
usher  in  the  midnight,  after  all,  he  .was  the  host, 
and  it  would  have  been  mere  churlishness  to  refuse 
to  drink  that  second  (or  was  it  third?)  glass  that  he 
filled  up  for  her  when  she  was  not  looking.  There 
were  foolish  games  on  these  evenings,  and  when  the 
ladies  went  to  bed  roars  of  laughter  ascended  from 
the  billiard-room,  where  the  men  "kept  it  up"  till 


320  PETER 

any  hour.  There  was  no  harm  in  being  young,  so 
she  and  Aunt  Joanna  agreed,  melted  into  unwilling 
cordiality  over  this  riotous  hospitality. 

Indeed,  if  there  was  any  "standoffishness"  to  be 
detected,  it  was  Silvia  who  must  be  impeached.  Yet 
"standoffishness,"  even  to  Uncle  Henry's  limited 
power  of  analysis,  did  not  quite  express  Silvia's 
quality.  "Just  a  bit  under  the  mark,  not  up  to 
romps,"  was  the  definition  that  he  and  Uncle  Abe 
arrived  at,  as,  after  waving  their  fat  hands  from 
the  window  of  the  motor  that  took  them  to  the 
station  at  the  conclusion  of  their  visit,  they  lit  the 
first  cigars  of  Peter's  Christmas  present  to  them. 
Naturally  they  had  not  begun  on  them  when  they 
were  staying  with  him,  for  there  was  always  a  box 
open  in  the  smoking-room. 

"Come  on  wonderful,  has  Peter,"  said  Uncle 
Henry.  "A  jolly  boy.  Handsome,  too.  Not  much 
wrong  with  that  marriage." 

Uncle  Abe  had  a  short  attack  of  what  he  called 
his  "morning  cough."  Joanna,  who  was  in  the  other 
motor,  called  it  "smoke  and  drink." 

"Shouldn't  wonder  if  you're  right,  Henry,"  he  said 
when  he  recovered.    "I  had  the  same  idea." 

"Well,  I  must  say  it  occurred  to  me,"  said  Henry. 
"She  seemed  a  bit  thoughtful.  And  that  would  ac- 
count for  Peter's  high  spirits.    Amazing!" 

Uncle  Abe  put  up  his  window. 

"I've  a  bit  of  a  cough  this  morning,"  he  said. 
"And  there's  a  pretty  fortune  for  any  child  to  come 
into." 

Peter  was  sitting  over  the  fire  in  his  bedroom  that 
night  watching  it,  and  trying  to  determine  that  when 
a  certain  coal  ceased  flaring  with  its  spray  of  bub- 


PETER  321 

bling  gas  he  would  go  to  Silvia's  room,  and,  one  way 
or  another,  make  an  end  of  an  intolerable  situation. 
He  had  no  idea  (so  much  depended  on  her)  what 
his  "line"  would  be.  Certainly  he  would  tell  her 
that  he  knew  what  she,  all  these  days,  had  kept 
from  him;  but,  beyond  that,  he  could  not,  in  the 
vaguest  manner  even,  forecast  the  development  of 
the  situation.  During  these  four  days  she  had  shown 
him  nothing  that  he  could  construe  into  a  signal;  not 
once  had  he  seen  her  privately,  and,  when  in  public, 
he  had  kept  up  his  role  of  the  rollicking  host.  He 
had  no  idea,  for  instance,  whether  she  knew  into 
what  lodging  his  surly  chimney,  not  yet  coaxed  into 
proper  behaviour,  had  driven  him.  She  had  asked 
no  further  question  since  that  general  inquiry  on  the 
stairs,  and  he  had  volunteered  no  information. 
Equally  had  he  avoided  any  private  conference  with 
Nellie;  sometimes  in  a  casual  meeting  of  their  eyes 
he  had  conjectured  an  unspoken  communication; 
but  he  knew  her  views,  as  the  situation  concerned 
himself  and  Silvia,  and  there  was  no  use  in  ham- 
mering at  that  any  further.  Nothing  else,  com- 
paratively, concerned  him. 

There  had  been  a  general  air  of  fatigued  reaction 
abroad  this  evening.  Mrs.  Wardour,  Silvia,  and 
Nellie  had  gone  to  bed  within  a  couple  of  hours  of 
the  termination  of  dinner,  and  he  and  his  father 
had  had  but  a  short  seance  in  the  billiard-room  be- 
fore parting.  Peter  had  an  excuse  for  his  early  dis- 
persal, for  he  must  be  at  Whitehall  by  ten  o'clock 
to-morrow  morning,  to  deal  with  accumulations. 

Yes;  when  that  lump  of  coal  collapsed  he  would 
go  to  Silvia.  Sleepily  he  watched  it,  trying  in  some 
ill-defined  manner  to  abstract  himself  from  agitat- 
ing thought,  to  give  himself  a  rest  before  he  plunged 


322  PETER 

into  some  sort  of  breaking  waves.  He  drowsed  for 
a  little,  and,  still  looking  at  his  fire  between  half- 
closed  lids,  he  fell  fast  asleep. 

The  fire  had  gone  out  except  for  a  glimmer  of 
dying  embers,  and  for  the  moment  of  bewildered 
awakening  before  he  realized  that  he  was  still  in  his 
armchair  in  front  of  the  grate  he  thought  that  he 
was  back  in  his  old  room,  and  that  the  chimney  was 
smoking.  As  he  came  to  himself,  he  realized  where 
he  was,  and  even  more  keenly  realized  why  his  mind 
had  caught  hold  of  that  idea  of  the  smoking  chim- 
ney. There  was  a  strong  smell  of  smoke  in  the 
room,  and,  jumping  up,  he  turned  on  the  switch 
of  the  electric  light,  which  was  close  to  his  hand. 
He  heard  it  click,  but  there  was  no  illumination  in 
answer.  He  had  matches  in  his  pocket,  and,  light- 
ing one,  kindled  one  of  the  candles  that  stood  on 
the  mantelpiece.  Wide  awake  now,  he  was  more 
than  ever  conscious  of  that  smell  of  burning,  and 
going  to  the  door  he  opened  it.  A  great  swirl  of 
smoke  came  in,  bellying  up  from  the  main  staircase 
on  the  left.  Through  it  there  came  the  noise  of 
crackling  wood,  and  a  shoot  of  veiled  flame. 

Peter  gripped  his  own  mind.  On  his  right,  close 
at  hand,  were  the  rooms  where  his  father  and  Nellie 
slept.  Farther  along  to  the  right  was  a  second  stair- 
case, communicating  with  the  ground  floor,  and  com- 
municating also  with  the  servants'  wing.  Half  shut- 
ting his  eyes  against  the  sting  of  the  smoke,  he 
groped  his  way  first  to  Nellie's  door. 

"Nellie,"  he  cried,  throwing  it  open,  "get  up  at 
once:  there's  a  fire  in  the  house." 

He  never  felt  more  completely  himself;  all  his 
brain  was  tingling  awake,  and  behind  his  brain 
something  else.    ,    ,    .    As  she  started  up  in  bed,  he 


PETER  323 

lit  her  candle  for  her,  for  here  too  the  wu-es  were 
fused. 

"Don't  wait  a  moment,"  he  said.  "Get  along  the 
passage  and  down  the  stairs.  I'll  send  my  father  to 
you." 

He  saw  her  on  her  way  and  plunged  into  hig 
father's  room. 

"House  on  fire,  father,"  he  said.  "Go  straight 
through  to  your  right  into  the  servants'  wing,  and 
bang  on  every  door.  Wake  Mrs.  Wardour,  two  doors 
away.  Then  join  Nellie  downstairs.  Don't  wait: 
I  don't  know  how  serious  it  is." 

Away  to  the  left,  beyond  the  column  of  smoke 
and  flame  now  pouring  up  the  main  staircase,  was 
the  baize  door  behind  which  were  the  rooms  which 
he  and  Silvia  had  occupied,  and  where  now  she  was 
alone.  He  tried  to  dash  along  the  corridor  to  reach 
them,  but  the  heat  drove  him  back.  Already  tongues 
and  swords  of  flame  licked  through  the  bannisters 
of  the  main  staircase,  past  which  he  had  to  go  in 
order  to  get  to  her.    He  was  cut  off  from  that  access. 

Suddenly  and  serenely  he  remembered  another 
access.  Along  the  front  of  the  house  below  the  win- 
dows of  the  room  he  at  present  occupied  and  those 
rooms  behind  the  baize  door  beyond  the  flaming 
staircase,  there  ran  externally  the  cornice  which  had 
reminded  him  of  that  which  ran  along  the  flat  be- 
longing to  Nellie's  mother  in  London.  He  remem- 
bered in  the  same  flash  the  discussion  that  Nellie 
and  he  had  held:  how  she  had  told  him  that,  if  he 
ever  loved,  he  would  be  forced  to  make  the  passage 
of  such  a  road  at  the  bidding  of  that  divine  compul- 
sion. It  would  not  concern  him,  so  she  had  said, 
that  he  incurred  a  mortal  and  a  useless  risk.  He 
might  not  be  able  to  rescue  (here  was  the  thesis)  the 


324  PETER 

beloved  of  his  soul.  Any  thought  of  rescue  was  out- 
side the  question.  But,  so  she  argued,  he  would 
not  be  able,  if  he  loved,  to  resist  the  imperishable 
impulse. 

Through  the  thick  scorching  air,  with  his  candle 
guttering  in  the  heat,  he  groped  his  way  back  to  his 
room,  and  shutting  the  door  against  that  burning 
blast,  he  went  to  the  window.  The  gleam  of  the 
white  stone  cornice  was  just  visible,  and  taking  off 
his  coat  and  waistcoat,  so  as  to  be  able  to  get  closer 
to  the  wall,  and  kicking  off  his  shoes,  so  as  to  secure 
a  better  grip,  he  let  himself  down  on  to  it.  There  it 
was  some  ten  or  twelve  inches  in  width ;  by  standing 
very  straight  up,  with  his  arms  flat  out  against  the 
wall  of  the  house,  he  had  his  balance  well  below 
him. 

He  moved  his  left  foot  first  and  brought  the  right 
foot  up  to  it.  He  rocked  for  a  moment  at  this  first 
movement,  and  recovered  himself.  .  .  .  And  then 
when  once  he  had  started  on  his  perilous  way,  the 
dawn  and  morning  of  it  all  broke  on  him.  Cau- 
tiously and  clingingly  he  advanced,  but  the  caution 
— there  was  the  sunlight  of  it — was  no  longer  for 
himself,  but  for  her  whom  he  sought.  For  himself 
it  seemed  to  matter  not  at  all  whether  a  step  ter- 
minated his  expedition:  the  object  of  it,  the  neces- 
sity, sheer  as  the  drop  below  him,  of  reaching  Silvia 
was  utterly  dominant.  From  outside  now  he  could 
hear  a  dim  roaring  inside  the  house,  but  it  neither 
delayed  nor  hastened  him. 

He  had  come  to  the  window  of  her  room,  and  now 
he  could  lean  an  elbow  on  the  sill  of  it,  while  he 
rattled  at  the  sash  and  tapped  at  the  glass.  Through 
her  blind  he  saw  her  room  spring  into  light,  and 
found  himself  recording  the  fact  that  this  electric 


PETER  325 

circuit  was  still  working.  Immediately  he  heard  her 
voice: 

"Who  is  it?"  she  cried.    "What  is  it?" 

"Peter,"  he  said.    "Open  the  window  quickly. 

The  sash  flew  up,  and  she  was  there,  close  to  him. 

"Give  me  a  hand,  darling,"  he  said.  "Just  pull 
me  in.    Don't  ask  any  questions." 

The  window-sill  was  high  above  the  cornice,  but 
with  her  hands,  firm  and  strong  as  a  boy's,  on  his 
arm,  he  scrambled  into  the  room. 

"The  house  is  on  fire,"  he  said.  "We're  cut  off. 
The  main  staircase  is  blazing.  But  it  will  be  all 
right:  don't  be  frightened.  My  father  will  have 
roused  the  servants  by  now." 

He  paused,  panting  from  some  retarded  terror  of 
his  climb,  unfelt  while  he  made  it. 

"Silvia!"  he  said. 

She  stared  at  him  a  moment. 

"But  you  were  safe,  Peter,"  she  said.  "What  good 
was  it  that  you  came?  Along  that  cornice,  did  you 
come,  all  the  way  from  your  room?" 

"I'm  here  anyhow;  good,  broad  cornice,"  he  said. 
"Now,  can  we  do  anything  more?  Let's  be  prac- 
tical: let's  think." 

For  an  immortal  second  she  held  him  close. 

"The  big  bell  in  the  turret!'  she  said.  "The  rope 
goes  through  the  corner  of  the  little  lobby  outside 
my  bathroom." 

"Oh,  good  thought,"  said  he.  "Come  and  help  me 
to  pull  it.  We'll  talk  afterwards,  when  we've  done 
all  we  can." 

The  sound  of  that  reached  the  little  town  a  mile 
away;  the  glare  on  the  sky  endorsed  the  signal.  Out- 
side on  the  terrace,  facing  the  lake,  and  now  vividly 
illuminated,   were   the   other   occupants   from   the 


326  PETER 

house,  busy  with  rescuings,  and  presently,  shouted 
up  to  the  two  through  the  open  window  by  which 
Peter  had  chmbed  in,  came  the  news,  conveyed  here 
by  telephone,  that  the  fire-engines  were  on  their  way. 
A  ladder  was  being  fetched  from  the  stables.  .  .  . 
Had  they  no  rope?  .  .  .  Then,  as  the  conflagration 
spread,  the  electric  light  snapped  itself  out. 

They  had  gone  back,  when  the  bell  had  done  its 
work,  to  Silvia's  room.  The  angry  glare  from  outside 
shone  in  through  the  window,  and  smoke  drifted  in 
from  below  and  around  the  baize  door  that  shut 
them  off  the  burning  corridor.  Already  the  fog 
of  it  obscured  the  glare. 

"That's  all  we  can  do,"  said  Peter.  "Come  close, 
my  dear.  You  mustn't  be  afraid.  There's  no  need. 
.  .  .  We " 

She  was  clinging  to  him  now. 

"I  have  something  to  tell  you,"  she  said. 

"You  needn't,"  said  he  quickly.  "I  know  it." 

"You  can't,"  said  Silvia. 

"But  I  do :  your  baby  you  mean,  bless  you." 

Suddenly  her  mouth  began  to  quiver. 

"Oh,  my  God,  why  did  you  come  here?"  she  said. 
"You  were  safe." 

Outside  beyond  the  baize  door  there  was  a  crash 
of  something  falling,  and  she  shrank  into  him. 

"Why  did  you  come?"  she  repeated. 

"Because  I  couldn't  help  myself.  It  wasn't  my 
fault.    You  don't  understand " 

"You  had  to,  do  you  mean?"  she  asked. 

He  made  no  reply  to  this:  his  presence  answered 
for  him. 

"Oh,  go  back,"  she  cried.  "You  can  go  back  still. 
If  you  love  me " 

He  took  her  close  into  one  great  enfoldment. 


PETER  327 

The  roaring  of  the  burning  house,  the  glare  of  its 
great  beacon,  grew  momentarily  more  vivid.  Then 
from  outside  came  a  yell  of  voices,  and  they  went  to 
the  window. 

'They've  come,"  said  Peter,  quietly. 

A  grinding  of  tlie  gravel  below,  shouted  orders,  a 
raising  of  a  ladder.    .    .    . 


THE   END 


"^MVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  AT  LOS  ANGELES 


OiOLVimar. 


I  lllSliS^^'^'O'^^LLIBfWRV 


FACILITY 


^A    000  365  758 


3  1158  00561  8987 


\ 


